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bzip2 vs GNU Gzip: catalog facts
bzip2	GNU Gzip
Free Free and open source under a BSD-style licence.	Free Free software from the GNU Project.
Windows, macOS, Linux, Command line	Linux, Command line
Better compression than gzip on many inputs Limited recovery from damaged media	Available on nearly every Unix-like system The .gz format is read almost everywhere
Slower than modern compressors such as zstd Releases are rare	Compresses single files or streams, not multi-file archives Lower compression ratio than xz, zstd or lzip
Downloadable app	Downloadable app
Open source	Open source
License: bzip2-1.0.6	License: GPL-3.0-or-later
No account needed	No account needed
Works offline	Works offline
Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 23, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 23, 2026

Catalog facts only. Anything “not stated” is unconfirmed. Check full listings for details.