Migrate a Free App to Mendix Basic

Last modified: January 16, 2024

1 Introduction

This how-to explains how to migrate your app and its database from a Free App environment to a paid Mendix Basic node. For more information on the Mendix Basic Package, see Mendix Basic Package.

You can also see these steps by watching this video:

For more information on setting up any environment details as described in the video, see Environment Details.

2 Prerequisites

Before starting this how-to, make sure that the following prerequisites are met:

3 Migrating to Mendix Basic

To migrate your Free App and its database to your Mendix Basic environment, follow the steps in the sections below.

3.1 Open your Free App

  1. Go to the Developer Portal. Sign in if necessary.
  2. Click the app that you want to migrate to a Basic Node.

3.2 Download a Backup

  1. In the navigation pane, click Backups.

  2. On the backup that you want to download, click More Options ( ) > Download.

  3. Make sure Full Snapshot is selected, then click Start to prepare the download.

  4. Once the backup is ready, click Download.

  5. Close the Download Backup dialog box.

  1. In the navigation pane, click Environments.

  2. Click Unlink your app.

    If you see the following message, your app has already been unlinked. In that case, you can skip ahead to Link Your App to the New Node.

  3. In the Confirmation pop-up, click Yes, delete all data and unlink this app.

  1. In the banner at the top of the Environments page, click Select a node.

  2. Click Use this node for the node you just licensed. You may have to confirm and authenticate this with two-factor authentication again.

3.5 Configure Your Environment

Before your app can be deployed live, you may need to configure your environment details. This is only required if you have some special configurations or you have to specify settings in order for your functionality to work. For example, if your app uses scheduled events or application constants, you can configure them at this stage. For more information about configuring your environment, see Environment Details.

3.6 Deploy Your App

Now you need to deploy your app! To do so, you need a deployment package.

  1. Create a deployment package as described in the Creating a Deployment Package.
  2. On the deployment package you just created, click Deploy ( ) to publish your app to the production environment.

3.7 Upload and Restore the Backup

The final step is restoring your data. You must do this after you’ve deployed your app because this ensures that a database has been provisioned and is ready to accept your data.

  1. Go to the Backups page.

  2. Click Upload Backup.

  3. Select the backup file you downloaded earlier in Download a Backup, then click Upload Archive. The file will be uploaded. Once the upload completes, a backup file is uploaded to your app using the data from your old Free App environment.

  4. On the backup you just uploaded, click More Options ( ) > Restore.

  5. Confirm the restore by clicking Restore Backup.

  6. Go to the Environments page and start your app. Now it is ready for use.