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Damn, I was just looking into and learning about the different main compression (gzip, bzip, xz) algorithms the other week. I guess this is why you stick to the ol’ reliable gzip even if it’s not the most space efficient.
Genuinely crazy to read that a library this big would be intentionally sabotaged. Curious if xz can ever win back trust…
Can anyone help me understand xz vs Zstd?
Technically, XZ is just a container that allows for different compression methods inside, much like the Matroska MKV video container. In practice, XZ is modified LZMA.
There is no perfect algorithm for every situation, so I’ll attempt to summarize.
- Gzip/zlib is best when speed and support are the primary concerns
- Bzip2 was largely phased out and replaced by XZ (LZMA) a decade ago
- XZ (LZMA) will likely give you the best compression, with high CPU and RAM usage
- Zstd is… really good, and the numerous compression levels offer great flexibility
The chart below, which was sourced from this blog post, offers a nice visual comparison.
