7-Zip vs lrzip

7-Zip is a file archiver for Windows, Linux, and macOS, offered at free with no registration or payment required. It creates and extracts 7z, XZ, BZIP2, GZIP, TAR, ZIP, and WIM archives, and can extract additional formats such as RAR, ISO, and VHDX. The 7z format uses LZMA and LZMA2 compression, and AES-256 encryption is available for 7z and ZIP files. Other listed capabilities include split archives, archive repair, portable use, and command-line tools. The Windows version includes Shell integration, a file manager, a command-line version, and a FAR Manager plugin. The software is open source; most code is under the GNU LGPL, with some under BSD licenses and an unRAR restriction applying to some parts. The maker says it can be used in commercial organizations without payment. It is localized in 87 languages. Developers can use the LZMA SDK, which includes documentation, samples, headers, libraries, and tools for applications using LZMA compression.

lrzip is a free GPL-2.0 command-line utility for compressing large files, usually above 10–50 MB. It first applies an extended rzip pass to reduce long-distance redundancy, then uses a backend such as LZMA, ZPAQ, LZO, GZIP, or BZIP2. Users can favor speed or smaller output, but not both simultaneously. Compression and decompression are heavily multithreaded, with CPU detection, and compression windows can use available RAM. Sliding mmap can exceed physical RAM but may be extremely slow. Encryption uses AES-256-GCM with PBKDF2-HMAC-SHA512 and HKDF; forgotten passwords cannot be recovered. The main program handles single files, while lrztar packages directories. It targets 64-bit Unix-like systems and supports macOS 10.5 or later from version 0.43. Building uses configure and make. Archive output is LRZ or TAR-compressed LRZ, with stable source releases on GitHub.