Owner's reply: Installing Akeeba Backup and taking a backup with it does not make any changes to your site. Only restoring a backup makes changes to your site, by definition. I am wondering why you think this is not the case. I'd really like your feedback on this.

Akeeba Backup does store the backup archives on your server, namely in administrator/components/com_akeeba/backup. This has always been the case, since it was called JoomlaPack when it was first released on October 2006. However, if you delete your entire site, including all of its files and folders, the backup archives stored in the default backup location will be lost since they are under the site's root that has been deleted. This is not making an excuse, it's a fact. Akeeba Backup does allow you to use a different directory and we do strongly recommend, by means of an in-component notice, to use one outside your site's root exactly so that you can avoid accidentally removing your backup archives.

You can restore your backup archives using Akeeba Kickstart. There is no in-component restoration in the Core (free of charge) edition of the software, what this Joomla Extensions Directory entry is for. A link to a video tutorial showing the restoration process and Kickstart itself is displayed in the Manage Backups page. Restoring the backup is contigent to your server capabilities and our documentation does tell you what to do if the restoration fails. Successfully restoring your site gives you the option to remove Kickstart and the backup archive, with a clear warning that this will take place. Is it possible that this is what you did but didn't read the waring? If so, I can of course try to make changes to address that.

If you are using the for-a-fee Professional version of our software then yes, you can have Akeeba Backup send the backup archives to a remote storage service under your control and optionally remove them from your server. In this case the backup archives will be stored in the service you configured yourself, they are not lost even if your entire site is wiped clean. You can download them, upload them to your site along with Kickstart and restore your site. If you still have access to your site's backend you can of course fetch back the backup archives to your server using the Manage Backups page and use the integrated restoration feature which is indeed part of the Professional version. If you do have the Professional version and are not sure how to do any of that you're welcome to file a support ticket on our site.

Regarding the documentation, we describe all pitfalls coming from server configuration. Server configuration is outside your or our control. It's what your hosting provider is responsible for. All we can do is provide the necessary options to work around limitations arising from these configuration choices, many of which are driven by cost cutting efforts on the hosting provider's side, and document how to use them to let Akeeba Backup work despite the problematic hosting environment. In my humble opinion that's the opposite of poor design. It's trivial to write backup software that works on an ideally configured server. It's notoriously hard to write backup software that works on servers with restrictive or problematic configuration, yet that's what I've been doing for the past 14 years of my life.

I would like to ask you to please use the Contact Us page on our site (https://www.akeeba.com/contact-us.html), using the pre-sales request option to reach me directly, to contact me regarding your negative experience with Akeeba Backup. It's possible that you misunderstood what transpired and I can still help you recover your site. If not, I would appreciate your feedback about what happened so I can further improve the software. This is what I've been doing for 14 years. My goal is and has always been to write software that provides REAL security to Joomla users, not just a false sense of security.