How to decide between them? Try out a bunch of them at once. gx will perform compress/decompress cycles for
a given file with a selection of algorithms (standard and third party).
$ git clone https://github.com/mkjt2/gx.git
$ cd gx/
$ go build
# Executable "./gx" is created
Compress/decompress gx executable itself, sort results by compression ratio.
$ ./gx -ratio
Test file: ./gx
Size (bytes): 2869058
Algo Package CX Ratio CX Time (s) DX Time (s)
zstd-best-compression github.com/klauspost/compress/zstd 1.79 0.10 (0.000) 0.01 (0.000)
flate-best-compression compress/flate 1.73 0.21 (0.000) 0.02 (0.000)
zlib-best-compression compress/zlib 1.73 0.19 (0.000) 0.02 (0.000)
gzip-best-compression compress/gzip 1.73 0.19 (0.000) 0.02 (0.000)
flate-default compress/flate 1.73 0.07 (0.000) 0.02 (0.000)
zlib-default-compression compress/zlib 1.73 0.06 (0.000) 0.02 (0.000)
gzip-default-compression compress/gzip 1.73 0.06 (0.000) 0.02 (0.000)
zstd-better-compression github.com/klauspost/compress/zstd 1.72 0.02 (0.000) 0.00 (0.000)
zstd-default github.com/klauspost/compress/zstd 1.71 0.01 (0.000) 0.00 (0.000)
zstd-fastest github.com/klauspost/compress/zstd 1.67 0.01 (0.000) 0.00 (0.000)
flate-best-speed compress/flate 1.64 0.02 (0.000) 0.00 (0.000)
zlib-best-speed compress/zlib 1.64 0.02 (0.000) 0.00 (0.000)
gzip-best-speed compress/gzip 1.64 0.02 (0.000) 0.00 (0.000)
flate-huffman-only compress/flate 1.31 0.01 (0.000) 0.00 (0.000)
zlib-huffman-only compress/zlib 1.31 0.01 (0.000) 0.00 (0.000)
gzip-huffman-only compress/gzip 1.31 0.01 (0.000) 0.00 (0.000)
lzw compress/lzw 1.27 0.03 (0.000) 0.03 (0.000)
Compress/decompress file $F, sort results by decompression time.
$ ./gx -dx-time "$F"
Test file: "$F"
Size (bytes): 71044112
Algo Package CX Ratio CX Time (s) DX Time (s)
zstd-fastest github.com/klauspost/compress/zstd 3.29 0.16 (0.000) 0.01 (0.000)
zstd-default github.com/klauspost/compress/zstd 3.61 0.19 (0.000) 0.02 (0.000)
zstd-better-compression github.com/klauspost/compress/zstd 3.78 0.35 (0.000) 0.03 (0.000)
gzip-best-speed compress/gzip 3.07 0.46 (0.000) 0.04 (0.000)
flate-best-speed compress/flate 3.07 0.46 (0.000) 0.05 (0.000)
zlib-best-speed compress/zlib 3.07 0.47 (0.000) 0.05 (0.000)
flate-huffman-only compress/flate 1.54 0.24 (0.000) 0.06 (0.000)
gzip-huffman-only compress/gzip 1.54 0.25 (0.000) 0.06 (0.000)
zlib-huffman-only compress/zlib 1.54 0.26 (0.000) 0.07 (0.000)
zstd-best-compression github.com/klauspost/compress/zstd 4.07 2.72 (0.000) 0.17 (0.000)
flate-default compress/flate 3.44 1.34 (0.000) 0.31 (0.000)
gzip-best-compression compress/gzip 3.45 4.18 (0.000) 0.31 (0.000)
flate-best-compression compress/flate 3.45 4.12 (0.000) 0.31 (0.000)
zlib-best-compression compress/zlib 3.45 4.17 (0.000) 0.32 (0.000)
zlib-default-compression compress/zlib 3.44 1.35 (0.000) 0.32 (0.000)
gzip-default-compression compress/gzip 3.44 1.35 (0.000) 0.32 (0.000)
lzw compress/lzw 2.08 0.70 (0.000) 0.41 (0.000)
Compress/decompress gx executable itself, sort results by compression time. Try 7 times, show averages,
$ ./gx -cx-time -n 7
Test file: /Users/jackie/dev/gx/gx
Size (bytes): 2869058
Algo Package CX Ratio CX Time (s) DX Time (s)
zstd-fastest github.com/klauspost/compress/zstd 1.67 0.01 (0.000) 0.00 (0.000)
flate-huffman-only compress/flate 1.31 0.01 (0.000) 0.00 (0.000)
gzip-huffman-only compress/gzip 1.31 0.01 (0.001) 0.00 (0.000)
zlib-huffman-only compress/zlib 1.31 0.01 (0.000) 0.00 (0.000)
zstd-default github.com/klauspost/compress/zstd 1.71 0.01 (0.000) 0.00 (0.000)
zstd-better-compression github.com/klauspost/compress/zstd 1.72 0.02 (0.001) 0.00 (0.001)
flate-best-speed compress/flate 1.64 0.02 (0.000) 0.00 (0.000)
zlib-best-speed compress/zlib 1.64 0.02 (0.000) 0.00 (0.000)
gzip-best-speed compress/gzip 1.64 0.02 (0.005) 0.00 (0.000)
lzw compress/lzw 1.27 0.03 (0.001) 0.04 (0.000)
flate-default compress/flate 1.73 0.06 (0.001) 0.02 (0.000)
gzip-default-compression compress/gzip 1.73 0.07 (0.001) 0.02 (0.000)
zlib-default-compression compress/zlib 1.73 0.07 (0.001) 0.02 (0.000)
zstd-best-compression github.com/klauspost/compress/zstd 1.79 0.11 (0.004) 0.01 (0.002)
flate-best-compression compress/flate 1.73 0.19 (0.001) 0.02 (0.000)
gzip-best-compression compress/gzip 1.73 0.19 (0.004) 0.02 (0.000)
zlib-best-compression compress/zlib 1.73 0.20 (0.002) 0.02 (0.000)