Zstandard is a fast compression algorithm, providing high compression ratios. It’s a C library, and a command line utility producing and decoding .zst, .gz, .xz and .lz4 files.
It also offers a special mode for small data, called dictionary compression. The reference library offers a very wide range of speed / compression trade-off, and is backed by an extremely fast decoder.
Zstandard is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Parallel (multi-threaded) implementations of both compression and decompression.
- Adaptive” (–adapt) mode that varies compression level depending on I/O conditions, mainly how fast it can write the output.
- Trade compression speed for stronger compression ratios. It is configurable by small increment. Decompression speed is preserved and remain roughly the same at all settings, a property shared by most LZ compression algorithms.
- Use a user-provided compression dictionary.
- Training mode, which can be used to tune the algorithm for a selected type of data. Training Zstandard is achieved by provide it with a few samples (one file per sample). The result of this training is stored in a file called “dictionary”, which must be loaded before compression and decompression. Using this dictionary, the compression ratio achievable on small data improves dramatically.
- Rich API set.
Website: facebook.github.io/zstd
Support: GitHub Code Repository
Developer: Facebook, Inc.
License: Dual BSD and GNU General Public License Version 2
Zstandard is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Compression Tools | |
|---|---|
| LZ4 | Focused on compression and decompression speed |
| Zstandard | Fast compression algorithm, providing high compression ratios |
| brotli | Generic-purpose lossless compression algorithm |
| lzop | File compressor favoring speed over compression ratio |
| pigz | Parallel implementation of gzip |
| ouch | CLI tool for compressing and decompressing for various formats |
| pixz | Parallel, indexed xz compressor |
| gzip | Provides the standard GNU file compression utilities |
| BZip3 | Spiritual successor to BZip2 |
| bzip2 | Freely available, patent free, high-quality data compressor |
| PBZIP2 | Parallel implementation of bzip2 |
| lrzip | Achieve very high compression ratios and speed when used with large files |
| lbzip2 | Multi-threaded implementation of bzip2, suited for serial and parallel processing |
| plzip | Massively parallel lossless data compressor |
| p7zip-zstd | p7zip fork with additional codecs and improvements |
| 7-Zip | File archiver with a high compression ratio |
| ncompress | Fast, simple LZW file compressor |
| PXZ | Runs LZMA compression on multiple cores and processors |
| crabz | Like pigz but written in Rust |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
| Multi-Core Compression Tools | |
|---|---|
| Zstandard | Fast compression algorithm, providing high compression ratios |
| pigz | Parallel implementation of gzip. It's a fully functional replacement for gzip |
| pixz | Parallel indexing XZ compression, fully compatible with XZ. LZMA and LZMA2 |
| PBZIP2 | Parallel implementation of the bzip2 block-sorting file compressor |
| lrzip | Compression utility that excels at compressing large files |
| lbzip2 | Parallel bzip2 compression utility, suited for serial and parallel processing |
| plzip | Massively parallel (multi-threaded) lossless data compressor based on lzlib |
| crabz | Like pigz but written in Rust |
| PXZ | Runs LZMA compression on multiple cores and processors |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
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