crabz
A cross-platform command-line tool for fast parallel compression and decompression, similar to pigz but written in Rust.
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1 more ways to get crabz
Package managers
- Homebrew
brew install crabz
About crabz
crabz is a command-line compressor and decompressor written in Rust. Its author describes it as "like pigz, but rust". It uses the gzp crate to split work across several threads, and it reads and writes Gzip, Zlib, Mgzip, BGZF, raw Deflate and Snap.
It can be installed through a Homebrew tap on macOS and Linux, and there is a Debian package for Ubuntu. The README calls it a proof of concept, so it suits people who want quick gzip-family compression in scripts and pipelines.
Strengths
- Multi-threaded compression in the style of pigz
- Supports Gzip, Zlib, BGZF, Mgzip, raw Deflate and Snap
- Homebrew and Debian package installs
Limitations
- Described by its author as a proof of concept
- Handles single streams, not archive formats like ZIP or 7z
- Command line only
Details
- Pricing
- FreeFree and open source, dual-licensed under MIT and the Unlicense.
- License
- MIT OR Unlicense
- Developer
- sstadick
- Platforms
- macOS, Linux, Command line
- How it runs
- Downloadable app
- Account
- Not required
- Works offline
- Yes
- Best suited for
- Fast gzip-family compression in shell scripts and data pipelines
- 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 crabz
Compare allSoftware that can replace crabz for an important use case, and what changes if you switch.
pigz
A parallel implementation of gzip that uses multiple CPU cores to compress data faster.
pigz is the established parallel gzip in C, a drop-in replacement for gzip under the Zlib licence, though it may need compiling from source.
GNU Gzip
The GNU command-line compression program that creates and decompresses .gz files.
GNU Gzip is the standard single-threaded .gz tool available on nearly every Unix-like system, trading speed on large files for ubiquity.
Zstandard
Meta's compression tool that hits near-zlib ratios at far higher speed, now used across Linux and modern filesystems.
Zstandard uses its own faster format standardised in RFC 8878 and also reads and writes gzip, xz and lz4, with Windows builds available.
LZ4
A lossless compression format and command-line tool built for very high compression and decompression speed.
LZ4 uses its own very fast format that scales across CPU cores, with a lower compression ratio and support on Windows as well.
Brotli
Compress and decompress data using the Brotli format.
Brotli is an MIT-licensed stream compressor and library that also runs on Windows, but its format lacks checksums and length metadata.
crabz as an alternative
Listings that name crabz as an alternative.
pixz
A parallel, indexing xz compressor that allows random access into compressed tar.xz archives.
crabz is a Rust multi-threaded compressor for gzip-family formats rather than xz, installable through Homebrew or Debian packages, and described by its author as a proof of concept.
Similar software
Related functionality, not necessarily a direct replacement.
GNU Tar
The GNU command-line tool for creating, extracting, updating and listing tar archives.
ouch
Command-line tool that compresses and extracts archives without format-specific flags.
ripunzip
A command-line tool that unzips ZIP files in parallel, including while downloading them from a URL.
bzip2
A long-established command-line block-sorting compressor and library for .bz2 files.
