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LZ4 vs bzip2: catalog facts
LZ4	bzip2
Free Free and open source.	Free Free and open source under a BSD-style licence.
Windows, macOS, Linux, Command line	Windows, macOS, Linux, Command line
Very fast compression and decompression Scales across CPU cores	Better compression than gzip on many inputs Limited recovery from damaged media
Lower compression ratio than zstd or xz Compresses single files or streams, not a full archiver	Slower than modern compressors such as zstd Releases are rare
Downloadable app	Downloadable app
Open source	Open source
License: BSD-2-Clause (library), GPL-2.0 (command-line tool)	License: bzip2-1.0.6
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.