Large-scale Code Migration at Netlify

Customer Overview

Netlify, the pioneer of the composable web, supports millions of developers and thousands of enterprise customers by handling infrastructure for modern web applications. With a team of over 100 engineers, Netlify constantly aims to keep their tech stack fresh, ensuring their developers can ship new features quickly despite their growing codebase size.

The Challenge

Netlify had previously attempted to migrate both React and React Router to the latest versions to improve the developer experience. However, the React upgrade was never prioritized due to other business initiatives, and the React Router migration was such a significant burden that it was set aside due to the complexity and risk associated with the task. Following their acquisition of Stackbit, merging the two codebases—and consequently modernizing Netlify's codebase—became unavoidable to maintain the company's high development velocity.

Our Solution

After careful evaluation of many solutions in the space, Netlify partnered with Codemod for its proven technology in large-scale codebase migrations, a step up from those used at Meta. As champions of open-source, Netlify picked Codemod's open platform, which aligned with their strategic goals. Codemod, the official maintainer of Meta’s jscodeshift and provider of codemods for top frameworks like React, Nuxt.js, pnpm, offered a seamless "successful-migration-as-a-service" solution. This ensured smooth migrations, clear ROI, and exceptional service. With shared values and technical expertise, Codemod was the perfect fit for modernizing Netlify’s codebase.

Codemod Agents plan, automate, and track large migration campaigns safely and efficiently with a phased, step-by-step approach that’s drastically faster than traditional manual methods.

The Partnership and Value Added

The partnership between Netlify and Codemod began with a discovery call to align on Netlify's tech stack and high-level business goals. Codemod’s team mapped out all necessary migrations, prioritized them, and created a comprehensive migration plan. This included outlining the benefits (faster development velocity), conducting a migration readiness analysis (cost and impact), developing an incremental migration strategy, defining roles and responsibilities, ensuring rollback strategies and quality assurance, and offering post-migration support.

Leveraging Netlify's instant rollback capabilities, Codemod executed the migration efficiently and with minimal risk. By automating half of the migration process using community-driven codemods, Codemod completed the migration twice as fast and at a significantly lower cost. Netlify’s team was relieved of the need to recruit and manage additional talent, avoiding the overhead of procurement and compensation. Furthermore, delegating these migrations to Codemod freed up Netlify's top engineers to focus on building new features, boosting both productivity and developer satisfaction.

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Migrate with peace of mind.

Fully delegate your migrations to Codemod Agents and empower your developers to do their best work. Contact us for a personalized demo to see how Codemod can modernize your tech stack, reduce migration time, and help your team ship features faster—on a secure and performant codebase.