- Comparison of file archivers
-
The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of file archivers. Please see the individual products' articles for further information. They are neither all-inclusive nor are some entries necessarily up to date. Unless otherwise specified in the footnotes section, comparisons are based on the stable versions--without add-ons, extensions or external programs.
Contents
Archivers
Note: Archivers in purple are no longer in development.
General information
Basic general information about the archivers: creator/company, licence/price etc.
Creator(s) First public release date Latest stable version Cost (USD) Software licence 7-Zip Igor Pavlov January 2, 1999[1] 9.20 (18 November 2010 )[1]
9.22 beta (April 18, 2011 )Free LGPL (RAR plugin is proprietary) ALZip ESTsoft 1999
(as a WinZip translation)8.22 (July 7, 2011 ) Free to try (60-day trial); $29.95 to buy - However Korean language version is free Proprietary Archive Utility Apple Inc. October 24, 2003 10.6
June 17, 2009Part of Mac OS X Core Services Proprietary Ark KDE team Unknown 2.14
February 9, 2010Free GPL Bandizip Bandisoft April 6, 2011 1.0.2
September 8, 2011Free Proprietary BetterZip BetterZip May 2006 1.8.3
September 9, 2009$19.95 USD Proprietary Bitser Bitser January 1, 2009 1.0 Beta
May 1, 2011Free Proprietary Compressed Folders Microsoft Inc. June 25, 1998 Windows Small Business Server 2011
December 14, 2010Part of Microsoft Windows Windows Explorer shell since Windows 98. Proprietary Disk ARchiver Denis Corbin 2002 2.4.1
May 21, 2011Free GPL File Roller Paolo Bacchilega Unknown 3.0.0
April 4, 2011Free GPL Filzip Philipp Engel Unknown 3.06 (June 29, 2006 ) Free Proprietary FreeArc Bulat Ziganshin November 1, 2007
v0.360.666
(May 20, 2010[2])Free GPL[3] iArchiver Dare to be Creative Ltd. October 21, 2007 1.4.1
October 30, 2008$26 Proprietary Info-ZIP (Wzip) Samuel Smith March 1989 6.0
April 29, 2009Free BSD-like IZArc IZSoftware Unknown 4.1.6 (March 1, 2011 ) Free Proprietary Keka aONe August 26, 2009 0.1.4.2 November 17, 2010 Free GPL KGB Archiver Tomasz Pawlak April 1, 2006 1.2.1.24 November 1, 2006
2.0 Beta 2 October 7, 2007Free GPL PeaZip Giorgio Tani September 16, 2006 4.2
November 20, 2011Free LGPL PKZIP Phil Katz 1989 12.4[4]
(ca. September 2009 )$29.00 Proprietary PowerArchiver ConexWare March 1999 11.71
January 3, 2011$19.95 Proprietary StuffIt Allume Systems 1987 14.0
September 15, 2009Free expander (email registration required); Mac: $49.99 Standard, $79.99 Deluxe; Windows: $24.99 Standard, $49.99 Deluxe Proprietary TAR AT&T 1979 GNU tar: 1.26 (March 13, 2011 ); star: 1.5.1; BSD tar: 2.6.0 Free Various The Unarchiver Circlesoft July 1, 2006 2.5
July 13, 2010Free LGPL TUGZip Christian Kindahl August 18, 2002 3.5.0.0
April 2, 2008Free Proprietary WinAce e-merge GmbH Unknown 2.69
November 23, 2007Free expander (GNU/Linux & Mac only); $29.00 Standard; $39.00 Plus Proprietary WinRAR Eugene Roshal / Alexander Roshal 1993 4.01 (May 30, 2011[5]) Free expander; $29[6] Proprietary WinZip WinZip Computing, Inc 1991 16.0 (Build 9686) (November 18, 2011 ) $29.95 Standard; $49.95 Pro Proprietary XAD a.k.a. XADMaster.library Dirk Stoecker 1998 13.1 Shareware, Free for non commercial use Proprietary Xarchiver Giuseppe Torelli Unknown 0.5.2
November 12, 2008Free GPL ZipGenius Matteo Riso of M.Dev Software May 2003 6.3.0.2400
January 22, 2010Free Proprietary Creator(s) First public release date Latest stable version Cost (USD) Software license Operating system support
The operating systems the archivers can run on without emulation or compatibility layer.
Windows DOS Mac OS X Linux BSD Other Unix AmigaOS Windows Mobile 7-Zip Yes[1] Command-line interface[2] Command-line interface[2] Command-line interface[2] Command-line interface[2] Command-line interface[2] Command-line interface[4] Yes[3] ALZip Yes Command-line interface[7] No No No No No Unknown Archive Utility No No Yes No No No No No Ark Unknown No Unknown Yes Yes Yes Unknown Unknown Bandizip Yes Command-line interface[8] No No No No No Unknown BetterZip No No Yes No No No No No Bitser Yes[1] No No No No No No Unknown bsdtar/libarchive Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes No Unknown Disk ARchiver Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes No Unknown File Roller No No No Yes Yes Yes Unknown Unknown Filzip Yes No No No No No No Unknown FreeArc Yes[2] Unknown Unknown Yes[2] Yes Yes Unknown Unknown GNU tar Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Unknown iArchiver No No Yes No No No No Unknown Info-ZIP Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes[9] IZArc Yes Unknown No No No No No No Keka No No Yes No No No No No KGB Archiver Yes[6] Partial Command-line interface Yes No No No Unknown PeaZip Yes Unknown Under Development[9] Yes Yes No No Unknown PKZIP Yes Yes No Yes No Yes No Unknown PowerArchiver Yes Unknown Command-line interface No No No No Unknown StuffIt Yes Unknown Yes X86 only, older version (5.2.0?) No older version (5.2.0?) No Unknown The Unarchiver No No Yes No No No No No TUGZip Yes Unknown No No No No No Unknown WinAce Yes Command-line interface[4] Command-line interface expander only[4] X86, Command-line interface expander only[4] No No No Unknown WinRAR Yes[1] Yes Command-line interface[5] X86 and x86-64, Command-line interface[5] Command-line interface[5] Command-line interface[5] No Yes WinZip Yes Command-line interface Yes No No No No Unknown XAD No No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Unknown Xarchiver No No No Yes Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown ZipGenius Yes Unknown No No No No No Unknown Windows DOS Mac OS X Linux BSD Unix AmigaOS Windows Mobile Notes:
- ^ A separate 64-bit Windows x64 Edition version is also available.
- ^ The Unix-like system port is known as p7zip. p7zip also is provided by FreeDOS.
- ^ A Windows Mobile release (version 9.05-alpha onward) is available.
- ^ Aminet contains several solution for 7zip under both classic and newage Amiga OS. [1]
- ^ The programs for other platforms are called Unace, do not have the same GUI, and can only perform decompression.
- ^ The programs for other platforms are called RAR.
- ^ This program also has a POSIX version available.
- ^ Beezer works on BeOS and ZETA platforms only.
- ^ General Windows CE version.
Archiver features
Information about what common archiver features are implemented natively (without third-party add-ons).
Data compression Shell integration Password protection Multiple volumes Self extraction File repairing Batch conversion Unicode file /
directory names[5]Encryption Filename Encryption 7-Zip Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes ALZip Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes[8] No Unknown Unknown Archive Utility Yes Yes No Unknown No No Yes Yes Unknown Unknown ARJ Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Unknown Unknown Unknown Ark Yes Yes Yes Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Bandizip Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes No BetterZip Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No Yes Yes Yes Bitser Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No Yes Yes Yes bsdtar/libarchive Yes Yes No Yes No No Yes Yes Unknown Unknown Disk ARchiver Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes File Roller Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No Yes Yes Yes Filzip Yes Yes Yes Unknown Yes No No Unknown Unknown Unknown FreeArc Yes[2] Yes Yes No Yes[2] Yes[2] Yes Yes Yes[2] Yes GNU tar Yes[2] Yes No Yes No Separate Yes Yes Unknown Unknown iArchiver Yes No Yes Yes No No No Yes Unknown Unknown Info-ZIP Yes No[11] Yes Yes[12] Yes Yes Yes Yes[12] Weak No IZArc Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Keka Yes Under development Yes Yes No No Unknown Yes Yes Yes KGB Archiver Yes Not enabled by default Yes Unknown Yes No No Unknown Unknown Unknown PeaZip Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes[9] Yes[10] Yes PKZIP Yes Yes Yes No Separate Separate No Yes Unknown Unknown PowerArchiver Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes[7] No Yes Yes StuffIt Yes Yes Yes Unknown Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Unknown The Unarchiver No[1] some formats Yes No No Yes Yes Yes[1] Yes TUGZip Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Unknown WinAce Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Unknown Unknown WinRAR Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes[3] Yes Yes[6] Yes Yes WinZip Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes[10] Yes Yes Yes XAD No[1] Yes Yes Unknown Yes Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Xarchiver Yes Yes Yes Unknown Yes Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown ZipGenius Yes Yes Yes Unknown Yes Unknown Yes No Unknown Unknown Data compression Shell integration Password protection Multiple volumes Self extraction File repairing Batch conversion Unicode file /
directory names[5]Encryption Filename Encryption Notes:
- ^ Application is only for decompression.
- ^ GNU tar calls the external programs gzip and bzip2 to perform compression; these external programs usually come with systems that contain GNU tar.
- ^ Allows adding a variable amount of redundancy for much better error recovery. See also RAR (file format).
- ^ Extracting/adding file and/or directory names into archive in either UTF-7, UTF-8 or UTF-16/UCS-2 encoding to support single file/directory name which contains characters from different languages. More recent versions of the zip file format have support for Unicode filenames.
- ^ In WinRAR 3.60, when opening 7-Zip archives which contains Unicode file/directory names, they will not be displayed correctly. There will be no problem extracting them, however.
- ^ Does support Unicode names, but not under the default (initial) option settings: the user must tick "Use OEM conversion for filenames" under "General" on the "Miscellaneous" tab in the Configuration dialog to enable Unicode name support. Full support for Unicode files names by default is supported only for 7-Zip and RAR archive formats.
- ^ Commandline batch compression is available only for ZIP and ALZ formats.
- ^ UTF-8 support was completed in release 2.5. On Unix systems the support is full, while on Windows systems, due to limitation of the Windows shell environment, double-character encoded characters cannot currently be displayed in filenames of archived objects, and those chars are replaced by a corrupted character. Optionally, extended characters can be set to be always replaced by a 'corrupted' "?" character to avoid possible issues between archive's and system's character encodings.[10]
- ^ Commandline batch compression and expansion requires free add-on software downloaded from the WinZip website.[2]
- ^ Peazip supports file encryption and file name encryption, although only in certain types of archives, including its own Pea format, 7-zip, zip and Arc.
- ^ Many shells have built-in zip file support. Windows Explorer has "Send To"->"ZIP-compressed folder".
- ^ Since version 3.0 (2008).
Archive format support
Reading
Information about what archive formats the archivers can read. External links lead to information about support in future versions of the archiver or extensions that provide such functionality.
ZIP TAR GZ BZ/BZ2 7z RAR LHA/LZH ACE SIT SITX ARJ KGB DAR ARC CAB ALZ ISO/CD Image 7-Zip Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No[1] No No Yes No No No Yes No Yes ALZip Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No Yes No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Archive Utility Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No No[7] Ark Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Bandizip Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No Yes No No No Yes Yes Yes BetterZip Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes No Yes No No No Yes No Yes Bitser Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No Yes No No No Yes No Yes bsdtar/libarchive Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No Yes Disk ARchiver No No No No No No No No No No No No Yes No No No No File Roller Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes No No No Yes Yes Yes Filzip Yes Yes Yes No No Yes Yes Yes No No Yes No No Yes Yes No No FreeArc Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No[1] No No Yes No No No[12] Yes No Yes GNU tar[2] No[2] Yes Yes[2] Yes[2] No[3] No No No No No No No No No No No No iArchiver Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes No No No Yes No No Info-ZIP Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No IZArc Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No Yes No No Yes Yes No Yes Keka Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Unknown Partial No No Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Yes Unknown Yes KGB Archiver Yes No No No No No No No No No No Yes Yes No No No No PeaZip Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No Yes No No Yes Yes No Yes PKZIP Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes No No No Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes PowerArchiver Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No Yes No No Yes Yes No Yes StuffIt Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes The Unarchiver Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Partial Yes Partial[11] Yes No No Yes Yes Yes No TUGZip Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No Yes No No Yes Yes No Yes WinAce Yes Yes Yes No No Yes Yes Yes No No Yes No Yes Yes No No Yes WinRAR Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No Yes No No No Yes No Yes WinZip Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes[4] Yes No No No Yes[5] No Unknown Yes[5] Yes No Yes XAD Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Partial Yes No No No Unknown Yes Yes Yes Yes Xarchiver Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes No No No Yes No Yes ZipGenius Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes[10] Yes No No Yes[10] No No Yes Yes No Yes ZIP TAR GZ BZ/BZ2 7z RAR LHA/LZH ACE SIT SITX ARJ KGB DAR ARC CAB ALZ ISO/CD Image Notes:
- ^ Used to, but no longer does, due to technical and legal issues.
- ^ GNU tar calls external programs [3] (like compress, gzip or bzip2 or any other programs working with abstract streams and supporting the "-d" option) to perform (de)compression, and allowing you to implement your own filters[4]. These external programs may be shipped with your Operating System.
- ^ GNU tar lets you implement your own filters [5], allowing you to use other compression programs (p7zip, ...) and filters (GPG, ...).
- ^ Starting from version 11.
- ^ Requires external program. More info
- ^ Archive Utility itself is unable to open ISO files, but Disk Utility, which also comes with Mac OS X, is able to mount them as virtual disks.
- ^ Requires external program.[6]
- ^ Only partial support for reading proprietary SITX format. [7]
- ^ FreeARC uses .arc as its filename extension, but this format is not the same as the traditional ARC file.
Writing
Information about what archive formats the archivers can write and create. External links lead to information about support in future versions of the archiver or extensions that provide such functionality.
ZIP TAR gzip bzip2 7z xz RAR LHA/LZH ACE StuffIt StuffIt X ARJ KGB DAR ARC CAB ALZ ISO/CD Image 7-Zip Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No ALZip[7] Yes Yes Yes Yes No Unknown No No No No No No No No No Yes Yes Unknown Archive Utility Yes No No No No Unknown No No No No No No No No No No No No Ark Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Unknown No[11] Yes Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Bandizip Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No BetterZip Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes No No No No No No No No No No No Bitser Yes No No No Yes Unknown No No No No No No No No No No No No bsdtar/libarchive Yes Yes Yes Yes No Unknown No No No No No No No No No No No No Disk ARchiver No No No No No No No No No No No No No Yes No No No No File Roller Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Unknown No[13] Yes Unknown Unknown Unknown Yes Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown No Filzip Yes Yes Yes No No Unknown No Yes No No No No No Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown FreeArc No[11] Unknown Unknown Unknown No[11] Unknown No[11] Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Yes Unknown Unknown Unknown GNU tar No Yes Yes[1] Yes[1] No Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No iArchiver Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Unknown No No No No No No No No No No No No Info-ZIP Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No IZArc Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Unknown No Yes No No No No No No No Yes No No Keka Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Unknown No No No No No No No No No No No Yes[13] KGB Archiver Yes No No No No Unknown No No No No No No Yes Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown PeaZip Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No No No No No No Yes No No No PKZIP Yes Yes Yes Yes No Unknown No No No No No No No Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown PowerArchiver Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Unknown No Yes No No No No No No No Yes No No Star No Yes Yes[1] Yes[1] Yes[1] Yes[1] No No No No No No No No No No No No StuffIt[4] Yes Yes Yes Yes No Unknown No[10] Yes No Yes Yes No No Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown TUGZip Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Unknown No[2] Yes No[5] No No No No No No Yes No Unknown WinAce Yes Yes Yes Yes No Unknown No Yes Yes No No No No Unknown Unknown Yes Unknown Yes WinRAR Yes No No No No No Yes No No No No No No No No No No No WinZip Yes No No No No Unknown No Yes No No No No No Unknown Yes No No No Xarchiver Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Unknown No[12] Yes No Unknown Unknown Yes Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown ZipGenius Yes Yes[9] Yes[9] Yes[9] Yes Unknown No Yes[10] No No No No No No Unknown Yes[9] No No ZIP TAR GZ BZ/BZ2 7z xz RAR LHA/LZH ACE SIT SITX ARJ KGB DAR ARC CAB ALZ ISO/CD Image Notes:
- ^ Tar implementations call the external programs gzip and bzip2, 7z, xz, ... to perform compression; these external programs usually come with systems that contain tar.
- ^ Requires rar.exe from WinRAR.
- ^ Requires external program. More info
- ^ Requires Ace32.exe from WinAce.
- ^ The Extractor and XAD are not included in this list because they only expand archives.
- ^ ALZip can also write to the following formats: BH, JAR, and LZH
- ^ Updating archives is not supported.[8]
- ^ Requires external program.[9]
- ^ Stuffit supported file formats [10]
- ^ Ark is a front-end only and requires appropriate command-line programs be installed. Programs like bzip2, gzip, tar, zip usually come with systems that contain Ark; writing in .rar format requires a commercial program. [11]
- ^ Xarchiver is a front-end only and requires appropriate command-line programs be installed. Programs like bzip2, gzip, tar, zip usually come with systems that contain Xarchiver; writing in .rar format requires a commercial program. [12][13]
- ^ File-Roller is a front-end only and requires appropriate command-line programs be installed. Programs like bzip2, gzip, tar, zip usually come with systems that contain File-Roller. writing in .rar format requires a commercial program.[14]
- ^ Keka version under development is able to create ISO and DMG files.
Uncommon archive format support
PeaZip has full support for various LPAQ and PAQ formats, QUAD and BALZ (highly efficient ROLZ based compressors), FreeArc format, and for its native PEA format.
7-Zip includes read support for .msi, cpio and xar, plus Apple's dmg/HFS disk images and the deb/.rpm package distribution formats; beta versions (9.07 onwards) have full support for the LZMA2-compressed .xz format.[1]
See also
- Comparison of archive formats
- Lossless compression benchmarks
- Comparison of file systems
- List of archive formats
- List of file systems
References
- ^ a b c "HISTORY of the 7-Zip". www.7-zip.org. 2010-04-15. http://www.7-zip.org/history.txt. Retrieved 2010-04-24.
- ^ a b c d e f g http://freearc.org/
- ^ "FreeArc : Develop". http://sourceforge.net/projects/freearc/develop. Retrieved 2009-08-17. "license: GPL"
- ^ http://www.pkware.com/support-desktop/product-updates
- ^ "Latest changes in WinRAR". http://rarlab.com/rarnew.htm.
- ^ WinRAR and RAR support site
- ^ http://www.altools.com/ALTools/ALZip/Features/Command-Line.aspx
- ^ http://www.bandicam.com/bandizip/help/parameter/
- ^ "PeaZip FAQ OS X support". http://peazip.org/peazip-help-faq.html#OSX. Retrieved 17 August 2011.
- ^ http://www.peazip.org/peazip-more.html
- ^ a b c http://freearc.org/FuturePlans.aspx
Further reading
- Kingsley G. Morse Jr., "Compression Tools Compared", Linux Journal, issue 137, September 2005
- Patrick Schmid, Achim Roos, (March 10, 2010) "Four Compression And Archiving Solutions Compared", Tom's Hardware
Data compression software implementations Archivers
with compression
(comparison)7-Zip · Ark · File Roller · FreeArc · Info-ZIP · Keka · KGB Archiver · PAQ · PeaZip · The Unarchiver (decompression only) · tar · UPX · Xarchiver · ZipegARC · ALZip · Archive Utility · ARJ · BetterZip · JAR · MacBinary · PKZIP/SecureZIP · PowerArchiver · StuffIt · WinAce · WinRAR · WinZipLossless data compression* Audio compression
(comparison)Freeware Advanced Audio Coder (FAAC) · Helix DNA Producer · l3enc · LAME · TooLAME · libavcodec · libcelt · libspeex · Musepack · libvorbis · Windows Media EncoderALAC · FLAC · libavcodec · Monkey's Audio · mp4als · OptimFROG · Shorten · TTA (True Audio) · WavPackVideo compression
(comparison)OthersCineForm · Cinepak · DNxHD · Helix DNA Producer · Indeo · libavcodec · Schrödinger (Dirac) · SBC · Sorenson · VP7 · libtheora · libvpx · Windows Media Encoder- Non-archiving
See also: compression methods and compression formats
Categories:- Data compression software
- Software comparisons
- File archivers
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