This documentation page does not apply to our software versions for Joomla! 4.0 and later versions. If you are not using Joomla 3 please consult the documentation index to find and read the correct version of the documentation.
Akeeba Backup can be used for much more than just backing up your site. Some indicative uses are:
Security backups. Taking a snapshot of your site should your server fail, or a hacker exploit some security hole to deface or compromise your site.
Template sites. Web professionals have used Akeeba Backup in order to create "template sites". This means that you can build a site on a local server, install every component you usually do on most clients' sites and back it up. You now have a canned site that can serve as a great template for future clients. Using the same method you can have a snapshot of all the sites you have built for your clients, without the need to have them installed on your local server.
Build a site off-line, upload the finished site easily. Web professionals can build a complete site off-line on a local server and when done take a snapshot with Akeeba Backup, then restore it on the production site.
Testing upgrades locally, without risking breaking the on-line site. Joomla!™ updates have the potential of breaking things, especially in complex or badly written components and modules. Web masters use Akeeba Backup to get a site snapshot, restore it on a local test server, perform the upgrade there and test for any problems without the live site being at risk.
Debugging locally. Almost the same as above, web professionals have used Akeeba Backup to take a snapshot of a client's Joomla!™ site in order to perform bug hunting. Using Akeeba Backup again, they can upload the fixed site back on the live server.
Relocating a site to a new host. Web masters who want to take their site to a new host have found Akeeba Backup to be their saviour. Just backup the original site and restore on the new host; presto, your site is relocated with virtually no effort at all.
Akeeba Backup has the potential to save you hours of hard labor, according to our users. It is licensed under the GNU General Public License version 3 or, at your option, any later version of the license. As a result, you are free to install it on as many sites as you like without having to pay for a pricey "developer's license".
Akeeba Backup comes in two editions, Core and Professional. Akeeba Backup Core is provided free of charge and contains all the features a typical webmaster would like to have in order to easily complete backup and restoration jobs. On top of that, the video tutorials and the full documentation are free of charge as well.
Akeeba Backup Professional is designed with the needs of web professionals in mind. It has features such as inclusion of external directories and databases, powerful filters based on regular expressions, and support for sending your backups on cloud storage services (such as Amazon S3, Dropbox or any other of the 40+ supported providers). Thanks to its GNU GPL v3 license Akeeba Backup Professional can be installed on an unlimited number of clients' websites without having to purchase additional subscriptions.
Disclaimer: Whether Akeeba Backup and its restoration works for you is highly dependent on conditions outside our control such as your server setup, your server configuration and your PHP configuration as well as the way you configure and use the software. We do provide free of charge versions of our software which let you evaluate it before purchasing a subscription and we do offer support which can potentially work around some server configuration issues. We consider it self-evident that despite our best efforts if you are unwilling to let us help you or if the problem is ultimately something that only your host can address we bear no responsibility whatsoever and accept absolutely no liability per the license our software is distributed under and our Terms of Service.