I've left Circle before. At Gumlet, we ran our developer community on Circle from June 2022, and after months of almost no engagement and poor indexing, we decided to move. We spent about a month planning, then moved to Discourse, and Google started indexing our pages right away.
That move wasn't to Jatra, because Jatra didn't exist yet. But it taught me what matters when you leave Circle, and I've moved communities between platforms since 2008. This guide covers what moves, what doesn't, how to protect your search traffic, and how to bring your members with you.
If you're still deciding whether to leave, read Circle vs Jatra first.
What you can take out of Circle
Here's what Circle lets you export, as of our audit in May 2026:
- Members, as a CSV file
- Posts and comments, as CSV files. Text only: images aren't included
- Course content, through Circle's API
- Subscriptions, as a CSV file
Circle's API is available on the Business plan and above. If you're on Professional, plan for CSV exports only.
What doesn't come with you
Be honest with yourself about this list before you start:
- Images stay on Circle's servers. They have to be downloaded and re-uploaded separately, or they break when your Circle account closes.
- Passwords. Every member sets a new password on the new platform.
- Likes, reactions, views, points and badges.
- Course structure, themes, workflows and paywall settings.
- Paid subscriptions. Members paying through Stripe have to re-authorize their payment.
Tip: Download every image before you cancel Circle. Once the account is gone, so are the files.
Protect your search traffic
This is where most migrations go wrong, and I've made this mistake myself. When we moved CrazyEngineers from vBulletin to XenForo in 2011, our URLs changed and traffic dropped about 40% for six to seven months. I don't think I set up redirects. If I didn't, that was one of my biggest mistakes.
Your Circle URLs look like /c/space-name/post-title. On Jatra they'll look different, so every old URL needs a 301 redirect to its new home. A 301 tells Google the page has moved for good and passes its ranking value along.
One catch: redirects only work if you control the domain. If your community runs on your own domain, we can map every Circle URL to its Jatra page. If it runs on a circle.so subdomain, there's no way to redirect those pages, so whatever search history they have stays with Circle. The good news is that Circle posts are loaded with JavaScript, so many of them may not have earned much search traffic in the first place. Check your Search Console before you assume the worst.
Bring your members with you
The data is the easy part. Members are what you can lose.
When we moved CrazyEngineers to XenForo, we didn't lose any of our active members. They carried straight on, because we told them why we were moving, what they'd get and what they'd lose. Once members understand why you're moving, they'll support it.
Here's the order I'd follow:
- Write down why you're moving, in plain words. If you can't explain it in two sentences, your members won't get it either.
- Show the new community to your 10 to 20 most active members first. Ask what's missing and fix what you can before anyone else sees it.
- Announce the move at least 30 days ahead, in the community and by email. Email matters: members who've gone quiet will never see a banner.
- Answer the obvious questions up front: Will my posts come over? Do I need a new password? What happens to my subscription?
- Send a reminder about every 10 days, then a launch-day email with clear login steps.
- On launch day, post a welcome thread and an "anything broken?" thread, and be there to answer.
- After the move, nudge the members who haven't logged in yet, and thank the ones who helped you test.
The community migration guide goes deeper on each step.
How long it takes
For a community of 500 to 2,000 members, plan for three to six weeks from first export to launch. Most of that time goes into preparing members and checking redirects, not moving data. Without redirects, expect your search traffic to take three to six months to settle. With them, the dip is much smaller.
What Jatra does for you
You don't have to do this alone. Every Jatra plan comes with migration support: it's included on annual plans, and on monthly plans we agree the scope case by case. We review your Circle exports with you, move your content and members, map your redirects, and help you plan the member communication.
Book a call and bring your Circle setup: how many members, which plan you're on, and whether you use your own domain. We'll tell you what the move involves before you commit to anything.
