One of the most used Joomla extensions is Akeeba Backup, but we don’t recommend it to our clients. Why? Well, because we don’t think it’s a good solution, and we don’t think that backing (and restoring) a Joomla website should be done from within Joomla, and here are 7 reasons why we think that:
- Akeeba Backup is not supported by any host: Hosts usually don’t support CMS applications (such as Joomla, WordPress, Drupal, etc…), and they certainly don’t support an extension within a CMS. If you have a problem restoring your website using an Akeeba backup, then your host will not be and can not be of any help.
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The Joomla website must be working in order to restore it: That point alone probably defies the whole point of Akeeba Backup, this means that you can just revert to a previous state of your Joomla website. There is a way to restore your Joomla website from outside Akeeba using the Kickstart application, but it’s very technical. We’re not sure if it fits within the Akeeba theme promoting simple backups and restores that anyone can perform.
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Akeeba Backups are not guaranteed to work: If you make a backup using Akeeba, then there are no guarantees whatsoever that you’ll be able to restore your website from that backup. It may or may not work, and we had many customers coming to us and telling us that Akeeba has failed them the only time they really needed it.
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Akeeba may crash when backing a large website: If you’re trying to back up a very large website using Akeeba, then beware, Akeeba may crash during the backup (which means that you’ll have to redo the backup), but not before crashing the whole website!
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Akeeba will slow down the whole website during the backup process: If you’re trying to backup medium to large websites, then Akeeba might slow down your website considerably during the backup. Of course, it might crash it eventually, but we’ve discussed this in the previous point.
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Support is good but isn’t great: In all fairness, Akeeba Backup is one of the few extensions out there where there is real support. The only issue we see with support is that there are too many “you haven’t used the extension properly” answers. Other than that, we have nothing to say about it.
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There is a bit of a steep learning curve: In our opinion, Akeeba Backup should have a small icon on the top right to seamlessly backup a website (in the background) with one click. Currently this is not the case: users are given many options that might confuse them, and, from our experience, those using Akeeba are far from being technical.
So, what do we recommend for backing up (and restoring) a Joomla website?
Well, the best way to backup any website is through cPanel (or any tool that your host offers for backup). Using cPanel, the Joomla administrator will be able to easily download a copy of the database and a copy of the filesystem (by clicking on the Backup and Restore icon on cPanel‘s landing page). Hosts usually have no problem whatsoever restoring a backup that was created by a tool they offer to their clients (such as cPanel).
If you have problems restoring (or backing up) a Joomla website using Akeeba, then please contact us, we’ll be more than happy to help. Please note though that if your Akeeba backup is corrupt, then we might not be able to restore your website using Akeeba (we will have to resort to other tools for attempting to restore your website). Also note that our very affordable fees apply.
I have used Akeeba and found it to be quite useful for its back ups. I have moderate size Joomla and WordPress websites and it has never failed me. I use it primarily to transfer the site to a new server and to make a separate backup other than the one offered in my cPanel. Also you don’t need Joomla or WordPress functioning to restore from your back up contrary to what you posted. I simply upload the backup file in zip format to the folder where the site resides, I extract it, and then let the embedded program restore the sites database. Usually 95% of the time everything is restored fully functional. Important note: make sure you tell Akeeba to back up the site in zip format otherwise it will use its JPA format. If you forget to do that the JPA format can be extracted but it will involve one extra step on the server side.
Hi John,
We did state that you don’t need a Joomla website if you’re using the kickstart file. As for the zip file, very rare are those who actually use the zip method when compared to those who use the jpa method. The disadvantages of using Akeeba are just far too great when compared to its advantages. The best backup is to use a cPanel backup, which is reliable, and is supported by the absolute majority of hosting companies out there.
The only complaint I have with Akeeba is it takes so long to back up a medium-size website much more with a large one.
Actually Akeeba as a software is quite ok – it works fine for me. But their support is horrible. On the 3 of 4 tickets I have created instead of content-related help I was actually insulted – then tickets where always changed to private by staff.