"Legacy modernization" gets sold as one service category, but porting a VB6 desktop app to .NET, translating a Sybase ASE database's SQL dialect to PostgreSQL, and replatforming a Drupal 7 site to Drupal 9 are three unrelated engineering problems with almost no shared tooling. A vendor who's spent a decade on UI framework ports doesn't automatically know how to handle stored-procedure syntax that doesn't exist in the target database. Ten years of "modernization experience" is a services-page phrase. The actual question is which specific migration type a vendor has done repeatedly, because that's the only kind of experience that transfers.
Five signals that separate real evidence from a services page
- Published modernization evidence: case studies naming the specific legacy system replaced, not a generic "outdated platform."
- Modernization review depth: what fraction of a vendor's client reviews actually describe modernization work, versus new builds counted under the same rating?
- Declared modernization commitment: what percentage of revenue is modernization specifically, versus a service they'll do if asked?
- Price and scope transparency: published rates and minimum project size, or "contact us" for everything?
- Takeover evidence: has this vendor actually taken over someone else's system mid-life, or only ever built greenfield?
Across a dataset of 4,215 vendor profiles and 7,934 case studies, only 47% name the actual legacy system being replaced, and just 30% of the numbers cited come with a baseline, time period, or method attached. Most of what reads as evidence in this space doesn't hold up to that check.
Why dialect translation is its own engineering problem
Ispirer's 60 million-plus lines converted across Sybase ASE, Oracle, InterBase, MySQL, and SQL Server isn't a UI problem or an infrastructure problem, it's a language-translation problem at the SQL level, and it needs its own tooling:
function translateStatement(sourceDialect, targetDialect, statement) {
const ast = parse(statement, sourceDialect);
const mapped = ast.nodes.map(node => {
const rule = dialectRules[sourceDialect][targetDialect][node.type];
if (!rule) return flagForManualReview(node, "no_mapping_rule");
return rule.transform(node); // type coercion, proprietary function syntax, procedural extensions
});
return { translated: render(mapped, targetDialect), manualReviewCount: mapped.filter(m => m.flagged).length };
}
The manualReviewCount output matters more than the translated code itself. Sybase's proprietary procedural extensions and Oracle's PL/SQL don't map cleanly onto PostgreSQL's PL/pgSQL, and a vendor who can tell you their manual-review rate on a past migration has actually run this problem at scale. A vendor who just says "we migrate databases" hasn't necessarily hit the constructs that don't translate.
Ten vendors, split by what they actually migrate
| Company | Founded | Team | Rate | Modernization revenue % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Devox Software | 2018 | 50-249 | $50-99/hr | 30% |
| Vardot | 2011 | 50-249 | $100-149/hr | 10% |
| Reenbit | 2018 | 50-249 | $25-49/hr | 15% |
| Corsac Technologies | 2007 | 50-249 | Undisclosed | 100% |
| Softacom | 2008 | 50-249 | $50-99/hr | 14% |
| Softwire | 2000 | 250-999 | $100-149/hr | 20% |
| Ispirer Systems | 1999 | 50-249 | $50-99/hr | 25% |
| Simform | 2010 | 1,000-9,999 | $25-49/hr | 10% |
| Codup | 2012 | 50-249 | $50-99/hr | 10% |
| Acquaint Softtech | 2013 | 50-249 | $25-49/hr | 10% |
Four worth a closer look, by migration type
1. Devox Software: UI framework ports
Stack: .NET, VB6, WinForms, .NET 8, Avalonia Best for: desktop applications where the UI framework itself is end-of-life, not just the backend
Technical note: 30% of revenue is modernization specifically, and their case studies show a 43% naming rate on the legacy system replaced, high enough in this dataset to trust the pattern isn't cherry-picked.
2. Ispirer Systems: database dialect translation
Stack: Sybase ASE, Oracle, InterBase, MySQL, SQL Server Best for: moving off a legacy database engine without hand-rewriting every stored procedure
Technical note: 60 million-plus lines converted is a scale number that only means something if you also ask what fraction needed manual review after the automated pass, that's the real measure of translation tooling quality.
3. Reenbit: ERP replatforming
Stack: Microsoft Navision, Dynamics 365, Azure, SQL Server Best for: moving off an end-of-life ERP without breaking the business logic buried in customizations
Technical note: ERP replatforming carries its own risk category, business rules often live in customizations nobody fully documented, which is a specification-recovery problem specific to this migration type.
4. Simform: cloud infrastructure lift-and-shift
Stack: Azure, Microsoft Fabric, SharePoint Best for: large-scale infra migrations where team depth matters more than a boutique specialist's focus
Technical note: a 1,000 to 9,999 person team size signals they can run infra migrations as a sustained program, not a single fixed-scope project, relevant when the migration spans years rather than months.
How Brocoders approaches modernization
Rather than one migration type, Brocoders treats modernization as a per-module decision. On Lake, a property management platform, a 3-month rebuild with a 5-person team grew connected properties 80x, from 500 to 40,000, while WordPress content pages that protected organic search rankings were left untouched rather than migrated for no reason. On HeyPractice, an MVP audit found 8 defects and the call was to keep the database structure and models intact while replacing only the controllers that had no test coverage. On Traders Alloy, the first move wasn't architecture at all, it was building a CI/CD pipeline before touching any legacy code, because you can't safely modernize anything without a safety net first.
What the market data says about this category
A median modernization project in the $50,000 to $200,000 range runs 9 months; the $200,000 to $1 million range runs 12. Only 2% of vendors cite cost as the stated reason for modernizing, against 15% citing growth, most legacy systems get replaced because they can't scale, not because they're expensive to run. Nearly 800 of over 4,000 case studies in this space describe replacing spreadsheets or manual processes entirely, a reminder that "legacy" here often means no software at all, not just an old codebase.
Engineering checklist before you hire a modernization vendor
- Match the migration type exactly: a UI framework port and a database dialect translation need different expertise, not the same "modernization" label.
- Ask for the manual-review rate on any automated translation or conversion tool, not just the total volume converted.
- Check the naming rate on case studies: does the vendor name the actual legacy system, or describe it generically?
- Verify modernization is a core practice, not a service they'll do if asked, revenue percentage is a real signal here.
- Confirm a safety net gets built first: CI/CD, regression tests, before any architectural change starts.
- Ask about ERP or business-rule recovery specifically if the legacy system has customizations nobody fully documented.
If you're trying to figure out which kind of modernization your legacy system actually needs before you hire for it, brocoders.com is a reasonable place to start that conversation.
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