Nicetas Akominatos was born to wealthy parents around 1150 in Phrygia in the city of Chonae (near the modern Honaz in Turkey).

He initially secured a post in the civil service, and held important appointments under the Angelos emperors (among them that of Grand Logothete or Chancellor) and was governor of the theme of Philippopolis at a critical period.

After the sack of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade in 1204, he fled to Nicaea, where he settled at the court of the Nicaean emperor Theodore I Lascaris, and devoted himself to literature.

His theological work, Thesaurus Orthodoxae Fidei, although extant in a complete form in manuscripts, has been published only in part.

Niketas is a major character in Alan Gordon's murder mystery A Death in the Venetian Quarter (New York: St. Martin's Minotaru, 2002).