Every compression format, demystified.
From the ZIP in your downloads folder to the SquashFS image inside your router — Archive Explorer is the deep reference for 220 compressed archive formats, the software that opens them, and step-by-step extraction guides for every major operating system.
Categories
Most-searched archive formats
How to open archives on your computer
Windows is the most common desktop OS for handling archives. Windows 11 added native handling for 7z, RAR, TAR, and a wide set of Unix compression for…
macOS handles ZIP and Unix tarballs out of the box, but anything else — RAR, 7z, modern compression like zstd or brotli — requires a third-party app. …
Linux is the natural home of the tarball. Every distribution ships tar, gzip, bzip2, xz, and usually zstd. RAR and 7z require optional packages but ar…
Stock Android does not include an archive manager. To open a RAR or 7z file emailed from a desktop you need a third-party app. The two most popular ch…
iOS gained native ZIP support in iOS 13 (2019). The Files app can create and extract ZIPs with a long press. For RAR or 7z, install one of the App Sto…
ChromeOS Files app handles ZIP, RAR, 7z, TAR, and GZIP natively — Google added the broad set in Chrome 88. ChromeOS treats archives as virtual folders…
Pick the right archiver
Reviews and supported-format matrices for the tools you actually install — 7-Zip, WinRAR, Keka, The Unarchiver, PeaZip and more.
7-Zip is the gold-standard free archiver for Windows. Open source, no nag screens, no ads, and the reference implementation of the 7z format…
WinRAR is the legendary "trial that never ends" Windows archiver. It is the only mainstream tool that can create RAR archives, including mul…
PeaZip is a free, open-source archiver from Italy that wraps 7-Zip's engine plus its own PEA format in a polished Pascal/Lazarus GUI. It sup…
Keka is the de facto archiver for macOS. It is a friendly Mac-native wrapper around the same battle-tested xz, libarchive, and unar librarie…
The Unarchiver is a free, open-source extraction-only tool for macOS, distributed via the Mac App Store. It handles a vast number of archive…
GNU tar is the universal Unix archiver. Almost every Linux server task that involves bundling files — backups, log rotation, source releases…
Format showdowns
Side-by-side comparisons answer the questions everyone asks: ZIP vs RAR, tar.gz vs tar.xz, 7-Zip vs WinRAR, Borg vs restic.
ZIP and RAR are the two formats most desktop users have actually heard of. ZIP is older, open, and built into every operating system; RAR is newer, pr…
7z almost always produces smaller files than ZIP using the LZMA2 algorithm, but ZIP is more universally supported. The choice is between size and comp…
RAR and 7z compete for the same niche: maximum compression with strong encryption. 7z compresses slightly better on most data and is open and free; RA…
Both are tarballs — the difference is the compressor. tar.gz uses DEFLATE and is fast; tar.xz uses LZMA2 and produces much smaller files at the cost o…
tar.xz has been the king of small Unix tarballs for over a decade. Zstandard challenges it with comparable ratios at a fraction of the CPU time, espec…
gzip has been the universal Unix compressor since 1992. Zstandard, from 2016, beats it on every axis at moderate levels — speed, ratio, and tunability…
7-Zip and WinRAR are the two heavyweight Windows archivers. The difference is mainly licensing — 7-Zip is free and open, WinRAR is shareware that nags…
7-Zip is the engine; PeaZip is a richer GUI built around the same engine plus more formats. PeaZip wins on UI and format coverage; 7-Zip wins on minim…
On macOS, Keka and The Unarchiver are the two essential free archivers. They serve different roles: Keka creates archives in many formats; The Unarchi…
The full encyclopedia
Every format we cover — 220 entries spanning consumer downloads, Linux package payloads, virtual machine disks, game asset bundles, e-book containers, and obscure historical curiosities.
- ZIP.zip
- RAR.rar
- 7z.7z
- TAR.tar
- GZIP.gz
- BZIP2.bz2
- XZ.xz
- LZIP.lz
- Zstandard.zst
- LZ4.lz4
- TAR.GZ (tarball).tar.gz
- TAR.BZ2.tar.bz2
- TAR.XZ.tar.xz
- TAR.ZST.tar.zst
- CAB (Cabinet).cab
- ARJ.arj
- LZH / LHA.lzh
- StuffIt.sit
- ACE.ace
- cpio.cpio
- ar (Unix archive).a
- DEB (Debian package).deb
- RPM (Red Hat package).rpm
- MSI (Windows Installer).msi
- APK (Android package).apk
- IPA (iOS App).ipa
- JAR (Java Archive).jar
- WAR (Web Application Archive).war
- EAR (Enterprise Archive).ear
- AAB (Android App Bundle).aab
- DMG (Apple Disk Image).dmg
- ISO (ISO 9660 image).iso
- IMG (Raw disk image).img
- WIM (Windows Imaging).wim
- VHD (Virtual Hard Disk).vhd
- VMDK (VMware Virtual Disk).vmdk
- QCOW2 (QEMU Copy-On-Write).qcow2
- OVA (Open Virtualization Appliance).ova
- TGZ (alias of tar.gz).tgz
- TBZ2 (alias of tar.bz2).tbz2
- compress (.Z).Z
- pack (.z).z
- LZMA (raw).lzma
- Brotli.br
- Snappy.sz
- LZO / lzop.lzo
- SFX (Self-extracting EXE).exe
- PAK (Game data).pak
- WAD (Where's All the Data).wad
- PK3 / PK4 (Quake engine).pk3
- EPUB.epub
- DOCX (Office Open XML).docx
- ODT / ODF.odt
- CRX (Chrome Extension).crx
- XPI (Firefox Extension).xpi
- NuGet package.nupkg
- Wheel (Python).whl
- RubyGems package.gem
- PKG (macOS installer).pkg
- xar (eXtensible ARchive).xar