bsdtar (libarchive)
Command-line archivers built on libarchive that read and write tar, zip, cpio, ISO and more.
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About bsdtar (libarchive)
The libarchive project provides a C library for archives and compression, along with the bsdtar and bsdcpio command-line programs built on it. bsdtar reads tar, pax, cpio, zip, xar, lha, ar, cab, mtree, rar and ISO images, and writes tar, pax, cpio, zip, xar, ar, ISO and mtree. It detects formats and compression combinations such as tar.gz automatically.
Because it streams data, there is no limit on archive size. It runs on most POSIX-like systems and on Windows. Releases are regular, with 3.8.9 released in July 2026.
Strengths
- One tool reads many formats, including zip, rar and ISO
- Automatic format and compression detection
- Streaming design with no archive size limit
- Runs on POSIX systems and Windows
Limitations
- Writes fewer formats than it reads; rar is read-only
- Command-line only
- Options differ in places from GNU tar
Details
- Pricing
- FreeFree and open source with no paid tier.
- License
- BSD-2-Clause
- Developer
- The libarchive contributors
- Platforms
- Windows, Linux, Command line
- How it runs
- Downloadable app
- Account
- Not required
- Works offline
- Yes
- Best suited for
- Scripting and extracting many archive formats from a single command-line tool
- Categories
- Compression, CLI tools
- Last verified
- Added
- Provenance
- Facts checked against the developer's own pages and store listings, 1 sources on file.
Alternatives to bsdtar (libarchive)
Compare allSoftware that can replace bsdtar (libarchive) for an important use case, and what changes if you switch.
GNU Tar
The GNU command-line tool for creating, extracting, updating and listing tar archives.
GNU Tar is the standard tar tool on most Linux systems and can update and append archives, but it handles only tar, not zip, rar or ISO.
ouch
Command-line tool that compresses and extracts archives without format-specific flags.
ouch is an MIT-licensed command-line tool that picks tar, zip, gzip, xz or zstd from the file name, also running on macOS, but it covers only common formats.
p7zip
Command-line port of 7-Zip's compression tools for POSIX systems.
p7zip brings 7-Zip's compression to Linux and macOS on the command line, writing 7z archives, though its development has slowed.
7-Zip
The small, free archiver that opens practically every archive format and compresses better than ZIP.
7-Zip adds a Windows graphical app and high-ratio 7z compression while unpacking RAR, ISO and many more formats, with console builds on Linux and macOS.
Similar software
Related functionality, not necessarily a direct replacement.
GNU Gzip
The GNU command-line compression program that creates and decompresses .gz files.
XZ Utils
The standard command-line tool for creating and reading .xz files.
Zstandard
Meta's compression tool that hits near-zlib ratios at far higher speed, now used across Linux and modern filesystems.
PeaZip
A cross-platform archive manager that reads over two hundred formats and has a real file manager built in.
bzip2
A long-established command-line block-sorting compressor and library for .bz2 files.
