Iguana to Mirth Migration Calculator — See Exactly What Switching Costs and Saves
Iguana renewals have gotten expensive. Many teams hit a six-figure annual line item without realizing how quickly the math changed. This calculator shows you — in 60 seconds — what migrating to Mirth Connect would cost, what you'd save, and when you'd break even. Real numbers. No sales call required to see them.
- ✓Side-by-side 3-year TCO comparison
- ✓See your breakeven month
- ✓No email required to see the estimate
Built by the team behind Mirth Connect support — productized monthly packages and fixed-price integration sprints for US healthcare organizations.
Question 4 of 5
~60 seconds
No email required to see your estimate.
To see your breakeven month — no email required
Typical migration timeline, zero production downtime
Typical post-cutover breakeven window
License fees on Mirth — it is open source
Five inputs. A real number. On the same screen.
Tell us five things — your current Iguana annual cost, number of channels to migrate, years remaining on your contract, team size, and timeline. The calculator shows you Year 1 cost comparison, 3-year total cost of ownership, your specific migration estimate, and the month you break even.
The estimate appears instantly on the same screen. The detailed PDF breakdown and Iguana-to-Mirth migration playbook are behind an email gate — but the numbers themselves are not.
Why Iguana customers are switching in 2026
Three things changed in the last few years that pushed many Iguana customers to start evaluating alternatives.
The cost trajectory
Iguana's pricing has trended upward at renewal, and many teams report annual increases that outpace their integration team's growth. For organizations running 10 to 25 channels, the license alone now rivals the cost of a senior integration engineer.
The open-source alternative matured
Mirth Connect (now NextGen Connect) has had years of community development, plus enterprise support options from independent providers like us. The "open source means unsupported" objection no longer holds.
The talent market shifted
Hiring Iguana-specific engineers has gotten harder. The Mirth Connect community is larger, the documentation is more accessible, and integration engineers with Mirth experience are easier to find and hire.
None of this means Iguana is a bad product. It means the value calculation has changed for many teams. The calculator above tells you whether it has changed for yours.
What a real Iguana to Mirth migration looks like
We've done enough of these to have a repeatable process. Total: typically 8 to 16 weeks depending on channel count. Zero production downtime.
Week 1
Discovery
We map every Iguana channel, document message volume per channel, identify custom Lua scripts that need translation to JavaScript or Groovy, and produce a written migration plan with your team.
Weeks 2 – 6
Parallel build
We rebuild every channel in Mirth, running it in parallel with the existing Iguana channel. Both engines receive the same messages. We compare outputs byte-by-byte to validate correctness before any cutover.
Weeks 6 – 10
Cutover, channel by channel
Channels move from Iguana to Mirth one at a time, in priority order. Iguana stays running as a hot rollback for each channel until we have confirmed stability in production.
Weeks 10 – 12
Iguana sunset
Once every channel is validated in Mirth, Iguana is decommissioned. Final documentation, runbooks, and knowledge transfer to your team.
Common objections, honestly answered
“We can't afford downtime during the migration.”
You won't have any. We run Iguana and Mirth in parallel through the entire migration. Cutover happens one channel at a time, with Iguana on standby as a rollback for each. If anything breaks during cutover, we revert in minutes.
“Our Lua scripts are 10 years old. We don't know what they do.”
This is the most common situation. Part of discovery is reverse-engineering what each script actually does — sometimes by reading the code, sometimes by analysing the message diffs in production. We have never failed to translate one.
“What if Mirth can't do something Iguana does?”
In our experience, the inverse is more common — Mirth has features Iguana doesn't. But for any specific concern, we'll test it during discovery before you commit. If we find a real blocker, we'll tell you before you sign the SOW.
“Our team doesn't know Mirth.”
We include hands-on training as part of every migration. By the time we hand over, your team can build, modify, and troubleshoot channels independently. We also offer ongoing Mirth support if you want a safety net.
“What about our message history?”
Iguana's message store stays with Iguana — we don't migrate historical messages. Mirth starts fresh at cutover. If you need to retain history, we can extract it from Iguana into a queryable archive (S3, a database, or your existing data warehouse) as part of the project.
“Are we just trading one license cost for another?”
No. Mirth Connect itself is open source and free. You pay only for the integration engineering work and any optional support you choose. There's no annual license check writing.
What's in the migration playbook
When you enter your email after running the calculator, we send the Iguana-to-Mirth Migration Playbook. It's the same document we work from internally on every Iguana migration. About 40 pages.
Your engineering team can use it to run the migration themselves, hire someone else to run it, or hand it to us. Either way, you keep it.
- The full migration timeline week-by-week
- The parallel-run validation methodology
- Channel translation patterns — how Iguana constructs map to Mirth constructs
- The Lua-to-JavaScript conversion guide
- The rollback playbook
- Pre-cutover and post-cutover checklists
- Common pitfalls we've hit and how we avoid them
Not on Iguana? Or already done with the calculator?
Jump straight to the sprint page, the broader pricing calculator, or our research on engine comparisons.
Iguana → Mirth Migration Sprint
8-week fixed-price sprint for ≤20 channels, channel-by-channel parity testing, zero-downtime cutover. From $34,500.
See the sprint →General Mirth Pricing Calculator
Estimate one-time integration, ongoing support, full managed service, or migrations from other engines. Real ranges from 200+ projects.
Run the broader calculator →Mirth Connect vs. Iguana
Feature-by-feature comparison of the two engines — Lua vs. JavaScript, licensing, talent market, and operational maturity.
Read the comparison →Migration questions we get all the time
Honest answers about cost, timeline, downtime, and what happens to your Lua scripts.
How much does it cost to migrate from Iguana to Mirth Connect?
How long does an Iguana to Mirth migration take?
Will we have downtime during the migration?
When will we break even on the migration cost?
Why are Iguana customers switching to Mirth Connect?
What happens to our Lua scripts?
Are we just trading one license cost for another?
Want to talk through a specific migration?
Most migrations start with a 30-minute scoping call. We'll look at your Iguana environment together, identify the channels that need migration, flag any unusual complexity, and give you a sharper estimate than the calculator can.
Option 1
Run the calculator
Instant estimate. No email required to see the number, the breakeven month, or the 3-year TCO.
Option 2
Book a scoping call
30 minutes with a senior Mirth engineer to refine the estimate against your Iguana environment.
Book a call →Option 3
Email us the details
Write to info@tactionsoft.com with a description of your current Iguana setup. Reply within 4 business hours.
Send a message →Senior US-based Mirth Connect engineers · HIPAA-trained, BAA available · Trusted by hospitals, labs, and health-tech teams across North America