Alternatives to Zstandard
Meta's compression tool that hits near-zlib ratios at far higher speed, now used across Linux and modern filesystems. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
Zstandard
Meta's compression tool that hits near-zlib ratios at far higher speed, now used across Linux and modern filesystems.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as Zstandard.
XZ Utils
The standard command-line tool for creating and reading .xz files.
XZ Utils reaches higher ratios with LZMA2 and ships on nearly every Linux and BSD system, but compression is slow and memory-hungry at high levels.
Brotli
Compress and decompress data using the Brotli format.
Brotli is an MIT-licensed command-line tool and library, but its stream format lacks checksums and original length metadata, and it does not read gzip or xz.
LZ4
A lossless compression format and command-line tool built for very high compression and decompression speed.
LZ4 is faster still for compression and decompression across CPU cores, with a lower compression ratio than zstd.
GNU Gzip
The GNU command-line compression program that creates and decompresses .gz files.
GNU Gzip's .gz format is read almost everywhere, but it is single-threaded and gives a lower ratio than zstd.
pigz
A parallel implementation of gzip that uses multiple CPU cores to compress data faster.
pigz produces standard gzip output using all CPU cores, though decompression gains little and it may need compiling from source.
Lzip
A command-line lossless compressor using a simplified LZMA, designed for long-term archiving and data safety.
Lzip focuses on long-term archiving with integrity checking and recovery options, but is single-threaded and decompresses more slowly.
bzip2
A long-established command-line block-sorting compressor and library for .bz2 files.
bzip2 is a stable, widely supported format with limited recovery from damaged media, but slower than zstd.
crabz
A cross-platform command-line tool for fast parallel compression and decompression, similar to pigz but written in Rust.
crabz offers multi-threaded gzip-family compression in Rust, but its author describes it as a proof of concept.
Also worth comparing
These listings name Zstandard as their own alternative, so the relationship runs both ways.
bzip3
A command-line compressor and library intended as a stronger successor to bzip2.
Zstandard focuses on speed with near-zlib ratios, is standardised in RFC 8878 and reads gzip, xz and lz4, with its maximum ratio below xz.
Kanzi
A multi-threaded lossless data compressor written in Java with selectable transforms and entropy codecs.
Zstandard uses a standardised format recognised by many tools, needs no Java runtime, and offers long-range and dictionary modes, but lacks Kanzi's runtime choice of transforms and codecs.
lrzip
A command-line compressor for large files that finds redundancy across long distances in the data.
Zstandard trades some ratio for much higher speed, offers a long-range mode for distant repetition, and runs on Windows, macOS and Linux with a standardised format.
ouch
Command-line tool that compresses and extracts archives without format-specific flags.
Zstandard also reads and writes gzip, xz and lz4, but compresses single streams rather than building multi-file archives the way ouch does.
pixz
A parallel, indexing xz compressor that allows random access into compressed tar.xz archives.
Zstandard uses the .zst format with much faster compression and decompression, a lower maximum ratio than xz, and builds for Windows, macOS and Linux.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
7-Zip-zstd
Build of 7-Zip that adds Zstandard, Brotli, LZ4, LZ5 and Fast-LZMA2 compression.
zpaqfranz
Keep compressed, versioned archives of changing files.
7-Zip
The small, free archiver that opens practically every archive format and compresses better than ZIP.
GNU Tar
The GNU command-line tool for creating, extracting, updating and listing tar archives.
bsdtar (libarchive)
Command-line archivers built on libarchive that read and write tar, zip, cpio, ISO and more.
