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Nope, Akeeba Backup DOES NOT reply on phpMyAdmin's code! The database backup engine was written by yours truly from scratch. I have identified all the issues regarding long running processes in PHP and working around them using a methodology that I invented and which is being used by other developers now. It's essentially the stepping algorithm that chops the process into multiple page loads which do not time out or run out of memory.

Furthermore I have seen the ill effects of trying to create a MASSIVE single database dump file and then try to gzip it – it takes 2.3x as much memory as its own size for PHP to handle it. That's why the database backup is chopped into roughly 0.5Mb parts which are seamlessly restored in the correct order by our restoration script (ANGIE).

Basically, I've spent nine years of my life working around the problems you are facing with phpMyAdmin and a lot of issues you've never thought of. And, yeah, an SSH command prompt is nice but GUIs are so much easier to use. That's why I've focused on improving our UX and UI.

Back to your question, a 1Gb database isn't all that big. It mostly depends on what kind of data you have in your database. If you are storing very large BLOBs, in the order of Mb per object, you might end up with a memory issue unless you increase PHP's memory_size. If you have millions of tiny records, in the order of less than 512b per row, the backup will take a substantial amount of time because MySQL can only go that fast. If you are on a host with severe CPU usage limitations the backup may fail at first but we can make it work – but it will work MUCH slower to circumvent the CPU limitations.

Just give Akeeba Backup Core a try. It's free of charge and I bet that you'll see why it has been winning a JOSCAR every year, is the most downloaded Joomla! extension and people trust it already for nine years ;)

You're welcome!