Compression & Archives

gzip, brotli, zstd, zip, tar — in Node, the browser, and at the edge.

Compression algorithms

★ zstd — fastest modern algorithm; 2–5× faster than gzip at similar ratios. Use @hpcc-js/wasm-zstd in browsers, node:zlib createZstdCompress in Node 22+.
★ brotli — best compression for HTTP text; built into all browsers. Use brotli-wasm in browsers, node:zlib brotli APIs in Node.
gzip — universal; built into Node and every browser; fine for most things.
deflate / raw deflate — used inside zip and gzip.

★ fflate — fastest pure-JS compression in 2026; sync + async APIs; tiny bundle. Default for browser compression.
pako — long-running pure-JS zlib port; bigger than fflate.
brotli-wasm — Brotli in the browser.
lz-string — specialized for compressing UTF-16 strings into URL-safe forms; great for compressing localStorage data.

★ @zip.js/zip.js — modern, streaming, browser + Node; the default for ZIP in 2026.
fflate's zip APIs — also good, smaller bundle.
JSZip — older, larger; still widely used.
archiver — Node-only, multi-format (zip, tar); when you need a Buffer-out workhorse.
tar-stream / tar-fs — streaming tar.
node-7z — wraps the 7z CLI for .7z and other formats.

Node node:zlib — built-in streaming gzip / deflate / brotli / zstd.
@zip.js/zip.js streams — handle multi-GB ZIPs without loading into memory.
tar-fs — stream a tarball straight to/from filesystem.

Cloudflare auto-brotlies / gzips responses. Don't compress at origin if your CDN does it.
Vercel / Netlify same.
Set Content-Encoding correctly when you do compress at origin.

Compress CSV before upload: fflate gzip + the user's bandwidth wins.
Single-file ZIP download from browser: @zip.js/zip.js.
Tar a folder for backup: tar-fs.
Compress localStorage: lz-string.
Ship pre-compressed static assets: Vite's vite-plugin-compression, Webpack's CompressionPlugin.

DecompressionStream API — built into modern browsers; supports gzip / deflate / brotli / zstd.
Always validate decompressed size — "zip bombs" and decompression-size DoS are real.