bzip2
A long-established command-line block-sorting compressor and library for .bz2 files.
These buttons open the developer's own site, repository or store listing in a new tab. wares.gg does not host downloads.
1 more ways to get bzip2
Package managers
- Homebrew
brew install bzip2
About bzip2
bzip2 is a patent-free data compressor and the libbzip2 library behind the .bz2 format. Its home page says it compresses files to within 10 to 15 percent of the best statistical compressors, while running about twice as fast at compression and six times faster at decompression.
It also offers limited recovery from media errors. The current stable version is 1.0.8, and the source code is distributed under a BSD-style licence.
Strengths
- Better compression than gzip on many inputs
- Limited recovery from damaged media
- Stable and widely supported format
Limitations
- Slower than modern compressors such as zstd
- Releases are rare
Details
- Pricing
- FreeFree and open source under a BSD-style licence.
- License
- bzip2-1.0.6
- Developer
- The bzip2 contributors
- Platforms
- Windows, macOS, Linux, Command line
- How it runs
- Downloadable app
- Account
- Not required
- Works offline
- Yes
- Best suited for
- Creating and opening .bz2 files on the command line
- 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 bzip2
Compare allSoftware that can replace bzip2 for an important use case, and what changes if you switch.
XZ Utils
The standard command-line tool for creating and reading .xz files.
XZ Utils uses LZMA2 for higher compression ratios and ships on nearly every Linux and BSD system, but it is slow and memory-hungry at high levels.
Zstandard
Meta's compression tool that hits near-zlib ratios at far higher speed, now used across Linux and modern filesystems.
Zstandard compresses much faster with near-zlib ratios, is standardised in RFC 8878 and reads gzip, xz and lz4, though older tools may not recognise .zst files.
GNU Gzip
The GNU command-line compression program that creates and decompresses .gz files.
GNU Gzip is faster and its .gz format is read almost everywhere, but it usually compresses less than bzip2 and is single-threaded.
bzip3
A command-line compressor and library intended as a stronger successor to bzip2.
bzip3 is intended as a stronger successor to bzip2 with cat, grep and less style helpers, but its .bz3 format is less widely supported.
Lzip
A command-line lossless compressor using a simplified LZMA, designed for long-term archiving and data safety.
Lzip uses a simplified LZMA with three-factor integrity checking and data recovery for long-term archiving, but it is single-threaded and less widely used.
LZ4
A lossless compression format and command-line tool built for very high compression and decompression speed.
LZ4 trades compression ratio for very fast compression and decompression that scales across CPU cores, under a BSD library and GPL command-line licence.
bzip2 as an alternative
Listings that name bzip2 as an alternative.
Brotli
Compress and decompress data using the Brotli format.
bzip2 is a long-established block-sorting compressor with a stable, widely supported format and limited recovery from damaged media, though slower than modern compressors.
Similar software
Related functionality, not necessarily a direct replacement.
GNU Tar
The GNU command-line tool for creating, extracting, updating and listing tar archives.
7-Zip
The small, free archiver that opens practically every archive format and compresses better than ZIP.
pigz
A parallel implementation of gzip that uses multiple CPU cores to compress data faster.
bsdtar (libarchive)
Command-line archivers built on libarchive that read and write tar, zip, cpio, ISO and more.
