7-Zip Alternatives (2024)

FAQs

Is there anything better than 7-Zip? ›

WinZip will always beat 7-Zip or WinRAR for compression speed on ZIP files. Like 7-Zip, WinZip offers 256 bit AES encryption with password protection.

Is WinRAR better than 7-Zip? WinRAR can provide a faster speed and a variety of decompressed formats than 7-Zip. However, it's not free and can support only ZIP and RAR for compression. Meanwhile, 7-Zip can zip and unzip on Mac and PC both.

ZIP Extractor® is a free app for creating and opening ZIP files on your computer and Google Drive™. Files in the RAR, 7z, and TAR format are also supported, including password-protected files.

Yes, 7-zip supports file encryption. When creating an archive, you can set a password to protect the contents of the archive. This ensures that only individuals who know the password can extract the files from the archive. It's important to choose a strong and unique password to maintain the security of your files.

Cons: While 7-Zip is highly effective, its user interface could be more intuitive for first-time users. Some may find the interface slightly dated and less user-friendly compared to other archiving tools.

Good news: You may not have to download 7-zip or WinRar anymore, unless you really want to (or like to password-protect files). In a new cumulative update, Microsoft added support for five new file archive types: . tar, . tar.

Winzip creates archives only in zip format. 7zip creates archives in zip, 7zip (7z), bzip2 (bz2), and a few other formats. Both can read archives in a wide range of formats including each others'. 7zip format generally compresses better than Winzip in their native formats, but is not as fast.

7z typically achieves significantly smaller compressed file sizes when compared to standard ZIP archives. This is due to its use of more advanced compression algorithms. On the downside, 7z files might require specialized software to open, whereas ZIP support is built into most operating systems.

What is the fastest ZIP file? ›

The 7ZIP algorithms LZMA2 and BZIP2 (implemented as *. 7z file) were the fastest and had a compression time of around 1 minute and decompression times of around 2 minutes (non-threaded).

And actual Winrar still offers you a lot of features that Windows doesn't have and seems to be a lot faster, so there are still plenty of reasons for power users to use it. Personally I own a winrar license primarily for its features when creating archives, and Windows isn't encroaching on that.

WinZip is bar none, the most popular and useful file compression utility out there. Most friendly and simple free file archiver. Fast and simple. Works on all platforms.

The 7z file extension is a compressed archive format created with 7-zip open-source software. It's similar to a ZIP file but uses a different lossless compression method called LZMA to reduce file size while preserving quality.

The RAR file format makes use of a compression algorithm. It is comparatively much more efficient and substantially better than the DEFLATE method of compression in ZIP. The ZIP format is comparatively much more popular because it came into existence much long ago.

RAR is generally better at data compression than the default support for ZIP files.