Which Is the Best Compression Tool for Linux?

When it comes to finding file compression tools in Linux, you are bound to encounter zip, gzip and bzip2. Which one is the best compression tool for you depends in part on what you are planning to compress. A series of tests put these three tools through their paces to see which one is best.

Best Tool for Compressing Windows Documents

The first test uses each compression tool on a single file type to determine how each tool handles the file in question.

This series of tests ran on a Windows document in the Microsoft DOCX format.

Using the default settings, the results are:

Tool	File Size
Initial Filesize	12202 bytes
zip	9685
gzip	9537
bzip2	10109

Using the maximum compression settings on the same file delivered similar results. Using the maximum compression didn't deliver better results than using the default settings.

Tool	File Size
Initial Filesize	12202 bytes
zip	9677
gzip	9530
bzip2	10109

Running this same test on two other files, one containing text only and one containing text, images, and formatting, delivered the same result: The maximum compression settings didn't make much difference in the results.

In all three tests, gzip comes out on top in all categories and bzip2 is the least effective.

Best Tool for Compressing Images

The next test shows the results of compressing images in PNG, JPG, Bitmap, and GIF formats. In theory, JPG files are already compressed and therefore may not compress at all and could, in theory, make the file bigger.

The test results illustrated that compressing the JPB format images had little effect.

PNG File

Tool	File Size
Initial Filesize	345265
zip	345399
gzip	345247
bzip2	346484

JPEG File

Tool	File Size
Initial Filesize	44340
zip	44165
gzip	44015
bzip2	44281

Bitmap File

Tool	File Size
Initial Filesize	3113334
zip	495028
gzip	494883
bzip2	397569

GIF File

Tool	File Size
Initial Filesize	6164
zip	5772
gzip	5627
bzip2	6051

In all cases, gzip came out on top again except for the humble bitmap. On the bitmap image, the bzip2 compression produced a tiny file in comparison to the original and the other compression formats.

Best Tool for Compressing Audio Files

The most common audio format is MP3, which has already been compressed, so the tools did not make much difference in the size of the two files that were tested.

File 1

Tool	File Size
Initial Filesize	5278905
zip	5270224
gzip	5270086
bzip2	5270491

File 2

Tool	File Size
Initial Filesize	4135331
zip	4126138
gzip	4126000
bzip2	4119410

Best Tool For Compressing Video

For this test, two video files were tested. As with MP3, the MP4 file already contains a level of compression. The FLV file does not have any level of compression as it is a lossless format.

MP4

Tool	File Size
Initial Filesize	731908
zip	478546
gzip	478407
bzip2	478042

FLV

Tool	File Size
Initial Filesize	7833634
zip	4339169
gzip	4339030
bzip2	4300295

Both file formats were compressed, and on both, bzip2 did the best job, although the results were similar.

Executables

The last category contains executables. Because executables are compiled code, it's no surprise that they don't compress well.

File 1

Tool	File Size
Initial Filesize	26557472
zip	26514031
gzip	26513892
bzip2	26639209

File 2

Tool	File Size
Initial Filesize	195629144
zip	193951631
gzip	193951493
bzip2	194834876

Although the effects were minimal, the gzip compression comes out on top and bzip2 comes in last.

Complete Folder Test

This time, the test is run on a folder full of images, documents, spreadsheets, videos, audio files, executables, and other different file formats.

Default Compression

Tool	File Size	Time Taken
Initial File	1333084160	0
zip	1303177778	1 minute 10 seconds
gzip	1303177637	1 minute 35 seconds
bzip2	1309234947	6 minutes 5 seconds

Maximum Compression

Tool	File Size	Time Taken
Initial File	1333084160	0
zip	1303107894	1 minute 10 seconds
gzip	1303107753	1 minute 35 seconds
bzip2	1309234947	6 minutes 10 seconds

Fastest Compression

Tool	File Size	Time Taken
Initial File	1333084160	0
zip	1304163943	1 minute 0 seconds
gzip	1304163802	1 minute 15 seconds
bzip2	1313557595	6 minutes 10 seconds

Based on the final test, it is clear that bzip2 is not as useful as the other two compression tools. It takes longer to compress the files, and the final file size is larger than the other two tools.

The difference between zip and gzip is negligible, and while gzip generally comes out on top, the zip format is more common across different operating systems.