Google Cloud Migration Center vs pgloader
Google Cloud Migration Center
cloud.google.compgloader
pgloader.ioSide by side
| Figure | Google Cloud Migration Center | pgloader |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | €100/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 6 |
| Spec score · Cloud Migration Tools | 8.1 (#6) | 7.8 (#13) |
| Founded | 1998 | 2005 |
| Purpose | Google Cloud Migration Center is a unified platform for moving from on-premises or other cloud environments to Google Cloud. | pgloader migrates data into PostgreSQL from databases and flat files using schema translation, casting rules, and parallel loading. |
| Security | Discovery client communication to Google Cloud is authenticated with a service account and encrypted using SSL/TLS; collected PII, SPII, and secrets are encrypted at rest with AES128_GCM and Windows DPAPI. | The site mentions Azure AD authentication for MS SQL Server but does not state security certifications or compliance attestations. |
Plans
pgloader
- CommunityFree
- Supporter€100 a month
- Professional€800 a month
- Sponsor€2,000 a month
- Fast-Lane€3,000, paid once
- Per-Release Sponsor€10,000, paid once
In their own words
Google Cloud Migration Center
Google Cloud Migration Center helps plan moves from on-premises systems or other cloud environments to Google Cloud. It estimates future Google Cloud costs from existing resource sizes and configurations, and can inventory servers and Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, and PostgreSQL databases. Assessments can report total cost of ownership, show application and network dependencies, and suggest destinations based on technical fit. Planning tools offer guidance on what to move and how, including rehost, replatform, and refactor strategies. Infrastructure information can be collected automatically once or continuously, or imported manually. Documented discovery covers AWS assets, Azure virtual machines in preview, and on-premises servers and virtual machines. A Linux and Windows discovery client can create offline reports without sending sensitive data to Google Cloud; the installed client itself runs only on Windows and does not discover databases. The service says it does not collect application or file-storage data. Estimates and assessments cost nothing, though other Google Cloud products may incur charges.
pgloader
pgloader migrates database and flat-file data into PostgreSQL using schema translation, casting rules, and parallel loading. Listed sources are MySQL, MariaDB, MS SQL Server, SQLite, CSV, fixed-width files, and DBF; Oracle support is not built yet. Its pipeline fetches the source catalog, prepares the PostgreSQL target, runs parallel COPY, creates indexes in parallel, and completes the schema. MySQL handling includes enum translation, converting TINYINT(1) to boolean, zero-date handling, and looking up credentials in .my.cnf. The MS SQL Server path includes Azure AD authentication, sequence migration, and multi-column foreign keys. For file imports, rejected rows can be separated after a failed COPY transaction while accepted rows continue loading. Custom casting rules go in a .load file. Version 3 in Common Lisp is the stable packaged release; version 4 is a pre-release JAR requiring Java 21 or later. The free Community tier has best-effort GitHub support. Paid support starts at €100/mo, with higher tiers offering priority handling, SLA-triaged patches, roadmap input, or issue-based support. It is self-hosted on Linux.