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Archivers comparison

arj32 a -jm

pkzip -ex

kzip

bzip2 -k -9

jar32 a -m4 (memory limits in jar.cfg extended to 64000)

zzip a -mx -a

sbc c -m3

uharc a -mx -md8192 -p-

The archivers were set to maximum compression. This time I've added list of used options. If you think that some other options can improve the compression add comment. The Uncompressed link leads to ZIPed version of the original file so you can compare your results with mine. Tested under Windows. Used free/shareware/trial/etc versions only. Tested on 19. 7. 2005. Tested on one executable, so archivers were unable to take advantage of solid archiving, only the pure compress power is shown.

My recommendations

Use:

• ZIP if you need maximum compatibility and/or fast decompression. Use Deflate method and compress it with 7-zip or WinRK (KZIP is even slightly better but also much slower).

• 7-zip for excellent compression using free open source multiplatform tool.

• WinRK

if you want best available compression. I'm really impressed that the 2 MiB barrier is beaten! That's less than 25 % of the original size!

Don't use:

• ZIP with other methods than Deflate. You will lost the main advantage of ZIP, which is compatibility. E.g. the builtin ZIP decompressor in Windows XP cannot handle Deflate64.

Notes and differences from the last time

It's really fascinating to see such big differences between various ZIP implementations. The difference between the best and the worst is 133541 bytes!

I was able to gain better compression with JAR than previous time even it is the same version because I tweaked the config file so it was able to use more memory.

I also found that 'comparsion' should be spelled 'comparison' :-) .

The Compressia is now discontinued.

RK Software was renamed to M Software.

7-zip significantly improved so it was now able to beat StuffIt, however it's still not as good as UHARC, even the old 0.4 version.

We have new winner now. WinRK beated them all!

Chart created in TeeChart Office.

Comments

Comment by Alessandro Gradilone on 2008-01-27 05:04:30 .
Recovery Record is essential and is my default profile in WinRAR and WinACE
hi there, please add the comp/decomp times in your next comparison table and mentino which engines are capable of adding recovery record. I´m more concerned to an overall great comprssion utility and mostly one that can effectively recover from data loss or corrupt media, so WinRAR and WinACE are the best options in my opinion. Both seem very similiar, they can add recovery record to enable data reconstruction in case the file gets corrupt for some reason - This ability is THE most important since you not only compress your files but actualy make them more realiable. The other aspect is time... it is useless in practical life to wait WinRK to finish compressing and/or decompressing. To sum it all, if you are looking for the best compression with good speed choose 7z but if you (like myself) do not care about having a bit bigger (and faster) compressed file, go with either WinRAR (my personal favorite) or WinACE.

Comment by Firas on 2007-04-23 14:11:27 .
Power Archivet is the best
using power archiver 2007 and choosing 7-zip with ultra memory is the best choice if you care about size and time

Comment by Anthony on 2006-10-12 12:19:59 .
UHARC Better compression
To achieve a better compression from uharc (and also making it a fairer comparison to 7zip) make the dictionary 32Mb in size {-md32768}

Comment by ReD on 2006-10-06 22:43:05 .
what about time
nice but time is a master piece too so what about adding this info to your comparison?

Comment by GX on 2006-05-12 14:02:15 .
Licence issues
mabe ass the licence to the comparison so its easier to determine which are commercial products

Comment by Moz on 2006-04-26 00:17:36 .
please add time taken
I'm also quite interested in the time taken and whether the programs can handle files >2GB, since I compress quite large files (>4GB) and don't have weeks to do the compressions. My tests suggest that 7zip is within 5% of the size of WinRK but it is at least 5x faster - the only test I did with WinRK it was still going after 24 hours when 7zip finished its slowest run in 5 hours.

Comment by anthony on 2006-02-09 21:11:01 .
recovery option - sitx?
I thought that sitx offered recovery option, called redundancy in the advanced format options. Not sure how well it compares as an all around compressor/decompressor. Still comparing it to win-rar and pkzip. Winrar seems very well liked, and pkzip, although not as prominent, seems simple and capable. 7zip still has issues where it won't open certain zips if it doesn't like the headers, so it's out for me for now. Anyone else have opinions on stuffit/winrar/pkzip?

Comment by Dane on 2006-01-29 06:57:58 .
Not a word in any comprssion app comparion about CRC error & file recovery
Only WinRar has a file recovery option which by adding 1% to file size lets you recovery from major corruption problems on Download, Upload or bad floppy or bad optical media. If everyone used winrar with file recovery option set in their default profile there would be no more problems of corrupt downloads. Speed nor compression ratio means a darn thing if the file can not be extracted to due CRC error from corruption.

WinRK can compress deeply but it takes "forever" to compress or extract a large archive. I'll stick with the best, which is WinRar w/file recovery option set in my default profile.

Comment by Patrick Channon - patchannon@yahoo.co.uk on 2006-01-13 08:16:27 .
WinIMP
I use WinIMP - also freeware, and the fastest backup software I've ever tested, with the smallest RAM footprint. Beats WinRAR at least 70% of the time, and SUPER fast. It's not ALWAYS the smallest out of the top 5, but makes the grade more than 50% of the time when using method1, max compression. :-) Perhaps you could test it?

Comment by Vallone on 2005-12-21 01:18:32 .
concerning only photos [JPEG/JFIF] compression
Stuffit [starting with version 9, in SITX archive format] is the only one at this moment that can achieve a compression ratio of 60% - 70% for JPEG files, which are otherwise almost incompressible for others archievers

Comment by Werner Bergmans on 2005-12-08 17:26:45 .
bits per byte
Kenney, that totally depends on the data that you are trying to compress. If you compress a file for example with only 1 million letters 'A' compression ratio 0.06 b/B is very poor...

Comment by Kenney on 2005-12-08 04:31:57 .
Compression ?
Is a compression rate of 0.06 bits per byte good ? I been working on a compression program for a week now and that's as low as I can get it.
compressKJB@hotmail.com

Comment by ted a. on 2005-10-20 18:30:37 .
Suggestion
Hi Michal,
Suggest to add pkzip v2.50, it compresses a little tighter than pkzip 2.04g and it's a little faster, too. It also supports LFN's. I'm wondering how it compares to new pkzip v8. Can't beat pkzip for speed. Wish others would try inline assembly. And thanks!

Comment by Razvan on 2005-09-29 05:53:17 .
question
what's the most powerful archiver for movies music and photos?

Comment by Werner Bergmans on 2005-08-21 18:39:17 .
Good job
I like your comparison, but compression of for example WinRK can be improved by using more memory (instead of default value). If you have more mem available in your machine, use it!. :)

Comment by gary g on 2005-06-30 13:07:36 .
just saying hello
like the idea of your the archiver comparisons - im off to download uharc - see ya