Akeeba Backup 
Akeeba Backup has won the prestigious Administrator Only Extension J.O.S.C.A.R. Award at J and Beyond 2010. Download it for free to find out why.
Joomla! 2.5/3.0 only. We have older versions for Joomla! 1.5/1.6/1.7 on our site.
Features:
- It configures itself for optimal operation with your site. Just click on Configuration Wizard.
- One click backup.
- AJAX powered backup (site and database, database only, files only or incremental files only backup)
- The fastest native PHP backup engine.
- Choose between standard ZIP or highly efficient JPA archive format
- able to exclude specific files, folders
- able to exclude specific database tables or their contents
- Unattended backup mode (CRON job scheduling), fully compatible with Webcron.org
- Backup using any cellphone made after 2007 with a web browser using our exclusive "Lite Mode" (including the cheapest Nokia and Sony Ericsson models!)
- AJAX powered site restoration
- "Kickstart" restore: restore without unpacking backup
- Move your site between hosts without downloading/uploading anything (using the DirectFTP backup engine)
- Archives can be restored on any host. Useful for transferring your site between subdomains/hosts or even to/from your local testing server (XAMPP, WAMPServer, MAMP, Zend Server, etc).
and much much more!
Do not miss out the complimentary companion desktop software (Akeeba SiteDiff and Akeeba eXtract Wizard) which are available free of charge from our site. They make working with Akeeba Backup a breeze.
Note: The software is free of charge, its support is not. You need a valid subscription (starting at EUR 7.79) to request support. However, its documentation, the troubleshooting wizard and searching the forum is free.
*** IF YOU CAN'T FIND HOW TO ENABLE A FEATURE LISTED HERE, PLEASE READ THE (FREE) DOCUMENTATION! ***
I use the software. My options work great: excluding some folders on a weekly backup. The restores I've done worked 100% and easily too.
This software is a must-have for any Joomla website.
The documentation is extensive as is the extension with it's help boxes. A must for every Joomla site.
Thank you for your review. For the record, the restoration process is this:
1. upload your backup archive back to the site
2. upload kickstart.php on the site
3. access http://www.example.com/kickstart.php
4. Click the following big buttons: Start, Run the installer, Next, Next, OK, Next, Clean Up. All of them are the only option in their respective pages except the two Next buttons (there is a Back button too on those pages – but anyone can understand which one to click).
I honestly don't think it can get easier or faster than that, especially since the aforementioned procedure allows you to restore your site on any server, not just the one you backed up from (a huge difference from most competitive solutions).
If, however, you think that you have a suggestion for improvement within the realm of a plausible feature request please feel free to use the Contact Us page to provided your feedback instead of leaving an non-constructive review. FYI, if you are about to suggest for integrated restoration, that's already part of our commercial offering and we are very upfront about it on our site, having a page which compares features between the free and commercial releases.
Thank you for your review!
I agree that untested backups are scary. In fact, my mantra is that an untested backup is worth as having no backup. That's why I ask people to test their backups, at least every time they make a major change on their sites.
Testing your backups is very easy. You can use XAMPP, MAMP, WAMPServer, Zend Server CE or any other pre-packaged local server environment to create a fully functional web server running off your local computer in seconds, without any specialised knowledge. You can then use Kickstart to extract the archive and restore it on this local testing server.
For more information you can take a look in our Quick Start Guide. If you ever get stuck during restoration, just go to our site's Documentation, Troubleshooting section where 99% of your questions are readily answered with detailed troubleshooting instructions.
And now, it can backup a dev site, and transfer it to a live site without screwing it up. You can tell it not to overwrite usertables, comments or forum posts. Now that's EXACTLY what you need.
His tutorials are well written too.
Also, at some point I needed to ask a question and submitted a ticket to Nicholas. He not only replied back to me very fast, but he actually finished the process for me down to the last detail.
For as long as I have an online business or any other website, i will be using Akeeba backup for my backups. The process is so smooth that is hard to believe, and the result can bring you tears of happiness after escaping disaster. Nicholas, today you and your software saved me and my business. I am eternally grateful, and wish you all the best.
