EaseUS Todo PCTrans vs MigrationMerlin

EaseUS Todo PCTrans transfers data, applications, user accounts and personal files to a new PC or disk. It offers PC-to-PC transfer, Backup & Restore and App Migration modes. The Pro page also describes migrating accounts, passwords, profiles, personalization and settings, and recovering files and programs from an unbootable computer through its old hard drive. Backup files can be saved to a computer, USB external drive, network drive, Dropbox or OneDrive. The product is for Windows PCs, with the Pro page listing Windows 11 support. Todo PCTrans Free costs nothing and limits transfers to 2 GB of data and 5 programs; account transfer is listed. The Free edition excludes dead-computer recovery and program-key scanning. Pro Monthly costs $49.95 a month, Pro Yearly costs $59.95 a year, and Pro Lifetime Upgrades costs $69.95, paid once; each covers two computers. Server costs $299 a year for two servers, and Technician costs $399 a year for multiple PCs or servers and multiple-client service. EaseUS says it uses encryption and other measures to protect data in transit and storage.

MigrationMerlin is a free Windows tool for moving user state between PCs, aimed at sysadmins and power users. It wraps Microsoft’s User State Migration Tool, including scanstate.exe and loadstate.exe, and provides an arrow-key-driven text interface plus numbered batch wrappers for step-by-step migration. Both source and destination PCs must run Windows 10 or Windows 11, have administrator privileges, and be reachable on the same network with SMB port 445 open. The tool can configure an SMB transfer share on the destination PC, including a firewall rule. IncludeUsers and ExcludeUsers options let users select profiles. ExtraData can include taskbar pins, Wi-Fi profiles, power plans, and items covered by custom migration XML. Migration stores can be encrypted with AES-256, but the README says there is no recovery path if the key is lost. During capture and restore, the tool displays progress, file counts, and throughput. It writes transcript logs to the migration folder’s Logs directory and masks credentials in those logs. The project is MIT-licensed and distributes downloadable ZIP artifacts through rolling GitHub releases.