AWS lists seven migration strategies (retire, retain, rehost, relocate, repurchase, replatform, refactor) and Gartner's older five include rebuild. What each means, what it costs in effort and risk, the AWS tools for each, and how to pick per application rather than for a whole estate.
Migration frameworks name the same handful of choices with slightly different words. AWS uses seven Rs. Gartner's original five were rehost, refactor, revise, rebuild and replace. The useful part is not the vocabulary but deciding, application by application, how much to change while you move.
Inventory every application with its owner, users, dependencies and what it costs to run.
Retire and retain first: in most estates a meaningful share of applications needs no move at all.
Default the rest to rehost or replatform, so the move itself stays predictable.
Pick a few applications that matter most to the business for refactoring, after they are running in AWS and you can measure them.
Rebuild only with a fixed scope and a plan to run old and new side by side.
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As of November 7, 2026. Provided as is, for general information, and accurate to the best of our knowledge on the date shown. Not legal, compliance, tax, financial or other professional advice. Prices, limits and vendor services change; check current vendor documentation before relying on anything here. Terms of use.