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.
Archivers
Note: Archivers names in purple are no longer in development.
General information
Basic general information about the archivers: creator/company, license/price etc.
File archivers | Creator(s) | First public release date | Latest stable version | Cost (USD) | Software license |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
7-Zip | Igor Pavlov | January 2, 1999 | 19.00 February 21, 2019 |
Free | LGPL (RAR plugin is proprietary) |
ALZip | ESTsoft | 1999 (as a WinZip translation) |
Template:Latest stable software release/ALZip | A free general serial number was published on developer's website altools.com in August 2012 | Proprietary |
ALZip for Mac | ESTsoft | 1999 (as a WinZip translation) |
Template:Latest stable software release/ALZip for Mac | A free general serial number was published on developer's website altools.com in August 2012 | Proprietary |
Archive Manager | Paolo Bacchilega | May 12, 2001 | 3.36.2
May 4, 2020[1] |
Free | GPL |
Archive Utility | Apple Inc. | October 24, 2003 | Template:Latest stable software release/Archive Utility | Included with Mac OS X Core Services | Proprietary |
Ark | KDE team | 1997 | 19.4.3 July 9, 2019 |
Free | GPL |
B1 Free Archiver | Adam Buyer | August 2011 | 1.5.86 November 25, 2013 |
Free | Proprietary |
BetterZip | BetterZip | May 2006 | Template:Latest stable software release/BetterZip | $19.95 USD | Proprietary |
Commander One | Eltima Software | August 4, 2015 | 1.1 September 29, 2015 |
Standard Free; $29.95 Pro Pack | Proprietary |
Compressed Folders | Microsoft Inc. | June 25, 1998 | Windows 8.1 August 27, 2013 |
Included in Microsoft Windows Windows Explorer shell since Windows Me. | Proprietary |
CRAX Commander | Soft4U2 | September 1, 2013 | 1.10.9 March 2, 2016 |
$19.99 USD | Proprietary |
Disk ARchiver | Denis Corbin | 2002 | 2.5.14 December 20, 2017 |
Free | GPL |
Expander | Haiku, Inc. | 2002 | Template:Latest preview software release/Haiku (operating system) | Free | MIT |
Filzip | Philipp Engel | Unknown | Template:Latest stable software release/Filzip | Free | Proprietary |
FreeArc | Bulat Ziganshin | November 1, 2007 v0.36 |
0.666 (May 20, 2010 ) |
Free | GPL |
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, 2009 |
Free | BSD-like |
KGB Archiver | Tomasz Pawlak | April 1, 2006 | 1.2.1.24 November 1, 2006 | Free | GPL |
PeaZip | Giorgio Tani | September 16, 2006 | 7.3.2 June 23, 2020 |
Free | LGPL |
PKZIP | Phil Katz | 1989 | 12.4[2] (ca. September 2009 ) |
$29.00 | Proprietary |
PowerArchiver | ConexWare | March 1999 | 17.01.04 October 5, 2017 |
$22.95 | Proprietary |
StuffIt | Smith Micro Software | 1987 | 15.0.7 December 1, 2011[3] |
Free expander; $49.99 Deluxe,[4] $79.99 French Deluxe;[5] Windows: $14.99 Standard,[6] $29.99 Deluxe,[7] $49.99 French (or German) Deluxe[8][9] | Proprietary |
TAR | AT&T | 1979 | GNU tar: Template:Latest stable software release/Tar; star: 1.5.3; BSD tar: 2.6.0 | Free | Various |
The Unarchiver | Circlesoft | July 1, 2006 | 3.11.3 September 16, 2017 |
Free | Proprietary |
Terse | IBM | July 1, 1984 | Free | Proprietary | |
TUGZip | Christian Kindahl | August 18, 2002 | 3.5.0.0 April 2, 2008 |
Free | Proprietary |
WinAce | e-merge GmbH | Unknown | 2.69 November 23, 2007 |
Free expander (GNU/Linux & Mac only); $29.00 Standard; $39.00 Plus | Proprietary |
WinRAR | Eugene Roshal / Alexander Roshal | 1993 | Template:Latest stable software release/WinRAR | Free expander; $29[10] | Proprietary |
WinZip | WinZip Computing, Inc | 1991 | Template:Latest stable software release/WinZip | $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 | 0.5.4 September 14, 2014 |
Free | GPL |
ZipGenius | Matteo Riso of M.Dev Software | May 2003 | 6.3.2.3112 August 8, 2014 |
Free | Proprietary |
ZPAQ | Matt Mahoney | March 2009 | 7.15 August 17, 2016 |
Free | Mixed public domain and MIT[11] |
Operating system support
The operating systems the archivers can run on without emulation or compatibility layer. Linux Ubuntu's own GUI Archive manager, for example, can open and create many archive formats (including Rar archives) even to the extent of splitting into parts and encryption and ability to be read by the native program. This is presumably a "compatibility layer."
File archivers | Windows |
DOS | Mac OS X | Linux | BSD | Other Unix | AmigaOS |
Android |
Windows Mobile | Windows Phone |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
7-Zip | Yes[1] | Command-line interface[2] | Yes[2] | Command-line interface[2] | Command-line interface[2] | Command-line interface[2] | Command-line interface | No | Yes | No |
ALZip | Yes | Command-line interface[12] | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
ALZip for Mac | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
Archive Manager | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
Archive Utility | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
Ark | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
B1 Free Archiver | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No |
BetterZip | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
bsdtar/libarchive | Yes, bundled[9] | No | Yes, bundled | Yes | Yes, bundled | Yes | Partial | Unknown | Unknown | No |
Commander One | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
CRAX Commander | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
Disk ARchiver | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
Filzip | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
FreeArc | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
GNU tar | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
iArchiver | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | Unknown | Unknown | ? |
Info-ZIP | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes[9] | Yes | No | Yes[8] | No |
KGB Archiver | Yes[7] | Partial | Command-line interface | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | Unknown | ? |
PeaZip | Yes[1] | Unknown | Under Development[13] | Yes | Yes | No | No | Unknown | Unknown | ? |
PKZIP | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Unknown | Unknown | ? |
PowerArchiver | Yes | Unknown | Command-line interface | No | No | No | No | Unknown | Unknown | ? |
Star | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Unknown | ? |
StuffIt | Yes | Unknown | Yes | X86 only, older version (5.2.0?) | No | older version (5.2.0?) | No | Unknown | Unknown | ? |
The Unarchiver | Command-line interface | No | Yes | Command-line interface | No | No | No | Unknown | No | ? |
TUGZip | Yes | Unknown | No | No | No | No | No | Unknown | Unknown | ? |
WinAce | Yes | Command-line interface[5] | Command-line interface expander only[5] | X86, Command-line interface expander only[5] | No | No | Command-line interface expander only | Unknown | Unknown | ? |
WinRAR and RAR | Yes[1] | Yes | Command-line interface[6] | X86 and x86-64, Command-line interface[6] | Command-line interface[6] | Command-line interface[6] | Command-line interface expander only | Yes[14] | Yes | ? |
WinZip | Yes[1] | Command-line interface | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Unknown | ? |
XAD | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Unknown | Unknown | ? |
Xarchiver | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | ? |
ZipGenius | Yes | Unknown | No | No | No | No | No | Unknown | Unknown | ? |
ZPAQ | Yes | Unknown | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Unknown | Unknown | ? |
Windows | DOS | Mac OS X | Linux | BSD | Unix | AmigaOS | Android | Windows Mobile | Windows Phone |
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.
- ^ The programs for other platforms are called Unace, do not have the same GUI, and can only perform decompression.
- ^ WinRAR is for Windows, RAR for other platforms.
- ^ This program also has a POSIX version available.
- ^ General Windows CE version.
- ^ Also Acorn RISC OS, Atari, MVS, OS/2, VM/CMS, VMS and others.
- ^ Bundled with Windows 10 since insider build 17063
Archiver features
Information about what common archiver features are implemented natively (without third-party add-ons).
File archivers | 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 Manager | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
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 | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
B1 Free Archiver | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
BetterZip | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
bsdtar/libarchive | non-tar formats[2] | Yes | zip | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | 7z, zip, rar | 7z, zip, rar |
Commander One | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Unknown | Yes for 7z |
CRAX Commander | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No |
Disk ARchiver | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Filzip | Yes | Yes | Yes | Unknown | Yes | No | No | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown |
FreeArc | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
GNU tar | No[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] | ZipCrypto (weak) and AES[12] | No |
KGB Archiver | Yes | Not enabled by default | Yes | Unknown | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Unknown |
PeaZip | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes[9] | Yes[10] | Yes |
PKZIP | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Separate | Separate | No | Yes | Yes | Unknown |
PowerArchiver | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes[7] | Yes | Yes | Yes |
StuffIt | Yes | Yes | Yes | Unknown | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Unknown |
The Unarchiver | No[1] | some formats | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes[1] | Yes | Unknown |
TUGZip | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Unknown |
WinAce | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Unknown |
WinRAR and RAR | 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 |
ZPAQ | Yes | Unknown | Yes | Yes | No | Unknown | Unknown | Yes | Yes | 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.
- ^ Traditionally, tar, cpio, or pax calls the external programs gzip and bzip2 to perform compression; these external programs usually come with systems that contain the archiver. This is the case for GNU tar. BSD tar uses its own implementation, since it also has to deal with archive formats that do their own compression.
- ^ 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 file/path-names support was completed in release 3.0.1 on Unix systems, and in release 5.8.0 on Windows systems. GUI UTF-8 support for full internationalization of the application was completed in release 2.2.0. Optionally, extended characters can be set to be replaced by jolly "?" character for exporting scripts to legacy systems; scripts creation screen informs if commands are ANSI-safe, OEM-codepage-safe (on Windows), or requires UTF-8 compliant environment to run (system, command interpreter, etc).[15]
- ^ Commandline batch compression and expansion requires free add-on software downloaded from the WinZip website.[1]
- ^ 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".
- ^ Unicode and volumes since version 3.0 (2008). AES since 3.1 (in beta).
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. Note that gzip, bzip2 and xz are rather compression formats than archive formats.
File archivers | ZIP |
TAR |
GZ |
BZ/BZ2 |
7z |
xz |
RAR |
LHA/LZH |
ACE |
SIT |
SITX |
ARJ |
KGB |
DAR |
ARC |
CAB |
ALZ |
ISO/CD Image |
ZPAQ |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
7-Zip | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No[1] | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | No |
ALZip | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Unknown | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
TAR | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
Archive Utility | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No[7] | No |
Ark | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
B1 Free Archiver | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No[11] | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
BetterZip | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | No |
bsdtar/libarchive | Yes | Yes | Yes[10] | Yes[10] | Yes | Yes[10] | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | No |
cpio | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
Commander One | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
CRAX Commander | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | No |
Disk ARchiver | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
Filzip | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Unknown | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
FreeArc | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Unknown | Yes | Yes | No[1] | No | No | Yes | No | No | No[12] | Yes | No | Yes | No |
GNU tar[2] | No[2] | Yes | Yes[2] | Yes[2] | No[3] | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
iArchiver | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Unknown | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No |
Info-ZIP | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
KGB Archiver | Yes | No | No | No | No | Unknown | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No |
PeaZip | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
PKZIP | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Unknown | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
PowerArchiver | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Unknown | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
Star[2] | No[2] | Yes | Yes[2] | Yes[2] | Yes[2] | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
StuffIt | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Unknown | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
The Unarchiver | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial | Yes | Partial[11] | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
TUGZip | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Unknown | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No |
WinAce | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Unknown | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | No |
WinRAR | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | No |
WinZip | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Unknown | Yes[4] | Yes | No | No | No | Yes[5] | No | No | Yes[5] | Yes | No | Yes | No |
XAD | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Unknown | Yes | Yes | Partial | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Xarchiver | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Unknown | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | No |
ZipGenius | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Unknown | Yes | Yes[10] | Yes | No | No | Yes[10] | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No |
ZIP | TAR | GZ | BZ/BZ2 | 7z | xz | RAR | LHA/LZH | ACE | SIT | SITX | ARJ | KGB | DAR | ARC | CAB | ALZ | ISO/CD Image | ZPAQ |
Notes:
- ^ Used to, but no longer does, due to technical and legal issues.
- ^ Tar implementations call external programs (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[2]. These external programs may be shipped with your Operating System.
- ^ GNU tar lets you implement your own filters [3], 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.[4]
- ^ Only partial support for reading proprietary SITX format. [5]
- ^ FreeARC uses .arc as its filename extension, but this format is not the same as the traditional ARC file.
- ^ Supports these formats as compression stream of other archive formats like tar.bz2 or iso.xz but does not support the format as an archive itself, as they are not archive formats. See the above explanation for tar.
- ^ B1 Free Archiver for Android and B1 Online Archiver support ARJ format.
Writing
Information about what archive formats the archivers[5] can write and create. External links lead to information about support in future versions of the archiver or extensions that provide such functionality. Note that gzip, bzip2 and xz are rather compression formats than archive formats.
File archivers | ZIP |
TAR |
Gzip/Deflate ZIPx |
Bzip2/BZ2 ZIPx |
7z |
XZ ZIPx |
RAR |
LHA/LZH |
ACE |
StuffIt |
StuffIt X |
ARJ |
KGB |
DAR |
ARC |
CAB |
ALZ |
ISO/CD Image |
ZPAQ |
Special |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
7-Zip | Yes | Yes | Yes[14] | Yes[14] | Yes | Yes[14] | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | |
ALZip[6] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Unknown | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Unknown | No | |
Archive Manager | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No[12] | Yes | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Yes | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | No | No | |
Archive Utility | Yes | No | No | No | No | Unknown | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | |
Ark | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No[10] | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | |
B1 Free Archiver | Yes | No | 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 | No | |
bsdtar/libarchive | Yes | Yes | Yes[15] | Yes[15] | Yes | Yes[15] | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | |
Commander One | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | |
CRAX Commander | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | |
Disk ARchiver | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | |
Filzip | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Unknown | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | No | |
FreeArc | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | |
GNU tar | No | Yes | Yes[1] | Yes[1] | No | Yes | No | 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 | No | |
Info-ZIP | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | |
KGB Archiver | Yes | No | No | No | No | Unknown | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | No | |
PeaZip | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | |
PKZIP | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Unknown | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | No | |
PowerArchiver 2018 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes[17] | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | .bh (BlakHole) by ZipTV |
Star | No | Yes | Yes[1] | Yes[1] | Yes[1] | Yes[1] | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | |
StuffIt[4] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Unknown | No[9] | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | No | |
TUGZip | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Unknown | No[2] | Yes | No[4] | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | Unknown | No | |
WinAce | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Unknown | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | Unknown | Unknown | Yes | Unknown | Yes | No | |
WinRAR | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | |
WinZip | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No[3] | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | ZIPx |
Xarchiver | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Unknown | No[11] | Yes | No | Unknown | Unknown | Yes | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | No | |
ZipGenius | Yes | Yes[7] | Yes[7] | Yes[7] | Yes | Unknown | No | Yes[8] | No | No | No | No | No | No | Unknown | Yes[7] | No | No | No | |
ZIP | TAR | Gzip/Deflate ZIPx | Bzip2/BZ2 ZIPx | 7z | XZ ZIPx | RAR | LHA/LZH | ACE | SIT | SITX | ARJ | KGB | DAR | ARC | CAB | ALZ | ISO/CD Image | ZPAQ | Special |
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(if you are using WinZip 11.1 or earlier). 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.[6]
- ^ Requires external program.[7]
- ^ Stuffit supported file formats [8]
- ^ 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. [9]
- ^ 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. [10][11]
- ^ Archive Manager 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 Archive Manager. writing in .rar format requires a commercial program.[12]
- ^ If there are more than one, files must be grouped in a .tar before being compressed.
- ^ supports the formats as stream compression of other archive format and can create compressed format like tar.bz2 or iso.xz but cannot create an archive in these formats
- ^ it is possible to open war and jar files to extract e add/replace file; files war and jar are still valid after that
- ^ it require console rar.exe, and the path to it -- specified in Options . it can be taken from WinRAR software . PowerArchiever also doesn't support separate definition of the Dictionary Size and Compression Method .
Uncommon archive format support
PeaZip has full support for Brotli, Zstandard, various LPAQ and PAQ formats, QUAD / BALZ / BCM (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.[16]
See also
- Comparison of archive formats
- Lossless compression benchmarks
- Comparison of file systems
- List of archive formats
- List of file systems
References
- ^ "GNOME 3.36.2 released". Gnome Mail Services. Retrieved 2020-05-12.
- ^ "Latest Product Updates - Support Center - PKWARE Support Site". Retrieved 2 July 2016.
- ^ "StuffIt Updates". Smith Micro Software. Archived from the original on 2011-12-06. Retrieved 2015-03-15.
- ^ "StuffIt Deluxe English|German|Japanese". Smith Micro Software. Retrieved 2011-12-01.
- ^ "StuffIt Deluxe Mac French". Smith Micro Software. Retrieved 2011-12-01.
- ^ "StuffIt Windows (Standard)". Smith Micro Software. Retrieved 2011-12-01.
- ^ "StuffIt Deluxe Windows". Smith Micro Software. Retrieved 2011-12-01.
- ^ "StuffIt Deluxe Windows French". Smith Micro Software. Retrieved 2011-12-01.
- ^ "StuffIt Deluxe Windows German". Smith Micro Software. Retrieved 2011-12-01.
- ^ "WinRAR and RAR support site". Retrieved 2 July 2016.
- ^ "ZPAQ site". Retrieved 2020-08-04.
- ^ "Command Line ZIP Interface - use scripts to automate zip tasks". Archived from the original on 27 February 2012. Retrieved 2 July 2016.
- ^ "PeaZip FAQ OS X support". Retrieved 6 October 2013.
- ^ "RAR - Android Apps on Google Play". Retrieved 2 July 2016.
- ^ "Learn more - PeaZip free file archiver utility". Retrieved 2 July 2016.
- ^ "HISTORY of the 7-Zip". www.7-zip.org. 2010-04-15. Retrieved 2010-04-24.
Further reading
- Maximum Compression site benchmarking compressors for several filetypes (text, executable, jpeg etc.).
- 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