Key Takeaway
In cloud migration, 'rehost' means lift-and-shift. Move the same workload to a new server without changing it. Fast, risky, and leaves all your old problems intact. At Rehost, we use the same word for the opposite thing: a team that builds, launches, and runs your app, website, and customer data on a flat monthly. Done for you, not by you.
The cloud-migration definition: lift-and-shift
Search 'what is rehost' on Google. AWS, Azure, IBM, and Cloudflare all tell you the same thing:
Rehosting (lift-and-shift) is migrating an application from one environment to another without changing its architecture or code.
That definition serves a specific reader. Enterprise IT team with a 2,000-server data center and a lease that ends next quarter. They don't want to rebuild anything. They want the same broken thing running on AWS instead of in a Dallas colocation.
For that reader, lift-and-shift rehosting makes sense. Fast, cheap, buys time. But it carries the baggage. The broken architecture, the technical debt, the outdated UX, the spaghetti integrations. You're in the cloud. You're just not built for it.
The Rehost definition: done for you, not by you
For small businesses, churches, creators, and enterprise teams that aren't moving a legacy data center, lift-and-shift is the wrong move. Lifting a broken Wix site into a new Wix site doesn't solve anything.
So we took the word. At Rehost, to rehost is to:
- Hand the work to a team. Your app, your website, your customer data. Done by us.
- Pay one flat monthly. Month to month. Cancel anytime. No $15k invoice, no hourly rate.
- Get it launched in weeks. Apps in 14 days. Websites in under a week.
Done for you, not by you.
Why the distinction matters
If you're a church paying Subsplash $299/mo, an AWS consultant will tell you to 'rehost' your app. Meaning: move it to a different server. That's not your problem. Your problem is the roadmap isn't built for your ministry, and you can't ship the features your congregation needs this Sunday.
Same for a restaurant on Toast. Same for a med spa on Vagaro. Same for a chamber of commerce on a Squarespace brochure from 2019.
Which definition applies to you?
| If you are... | The word means... |
|---|---|
| A Fortune 500 IT team moving a data center | AWS rehost (lift-and-shift) |
| A church on Subsplash waiting on a roadmap | Rehost (team builds for you) |
| A restaurant stuck on Toast's app | Rehost (team builds for you) |
| A med spa juggling Vagaro, Mailchimp, and Calendly | Rehost (team builds for you) |
| Anyone whose website is a template with a logo slapped on | Rehost (team builds for you) |
So is Rehost a cloud-migration company?
No. Not AWS, not Azure, not IBM, not a mainframe lift-and-shift shop. If your job title is 'Cloud Migration Architect' and you found us searching for lift-and-shift, you want a different website. Try AWS Migration Hub.
If you're an organization or team that needs an app, a website, and a customer data system, and you want a team to build, launch, and run all of it on a flat monthly, that's what we do. Read the full definition.