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WinRAR vs 7-Zip: catalog facts
WinRAR	7-Zip
Paid Paid licence after a 40-day trial. The trial continues to work and shows a reminder on…	Free Free software with open source. The site states you can use 7-Zip on any computer…
Windows, macOS, Linux	Windows, Linux, macOS, Command line
The only tool that creates RAR archives, including recovery records Reads ZIP, 7z, tar, ISO and most other formats you are handed	High compression ratio in the 7z format with LZMA and LZMA2 Packs 7z, XZ, BZIP2, GZIP, TAR, ZIP and WIM and unpacks dozens more, including RAR, ISO, MSI and…
Paid software; the free trial is technically an evaluation, not a licence Windows only for the graphical version	The Linux and macOS builds are console versions; there is no official graphical app on those platforms The Windows interface has not changed much in twenty years
Downloadable app	Downloadable app
Closed source	Open source
License not stated	License: LGPL-2.1
No account needed	No account needed
Works offline	Works offline
Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 21, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 20, 2026

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