Benchmarks

This page presents detailed benchmark results for all compressionz codecs.

Test Environment

Property	Value
Platform	macOS (Darwin) on Apple Silicon (aarch64)
Build	ReleaseFast optimization
Iterations	20 benchmark runs (3 warmup)
Data	Mixed-pattern: repetitive text, sequential bytes, varied data

Quick Summary (1 MB Data)

Codec	Compress	Decompress	Ratio	Recommendation
LZ4 Raw	36.6 GB/s	8.1 GB/s	99.5%	Maximum speed
Snappy	31.6 GB/s	9.2 GB/s	95.3%	Real-time
Zstd	12.0 GB/s	11.6 GB/s	99.9%	Best overall
LZ4 Frame	4.8 GB/s	3.8 GB/s	99.3%	File storage
Gzip	2.4 GB/s	2.4 GB/s	99.2%	Compatibility
Brotli	1.3 GB/s	1.9 GB/s	99.9%	Static assets

Detailed Results by Data Size

1 KB Data

Codec	Level	Ratio	Size	Compress	Decompress
LZ4 Frame	fast	41.2%	588 B	9.2 µs	5.1 µs
LZ4 Frame	default	41.2%	588 B	8.9 µs	4.8 µs
LZ4 Raw	default	43.9%	561 B	3.8 µs	1.7 µs
Snappy	default	42.1%	579 B	7.2 µs	0.1 µs
Zstd	fast	43.0%	570 B	13.6 µs	0.7 µs
Zstd	default	43.0%	570 B	10.4 µs	0.7 µs
Zstd	best	43.0%	570 B	177.9 µs	0.9 µs
Gzip	fast	40.0%	600 B	20.3 µs	6.7 µs
Gzip	default	40.0%	600 B	24.3 µs	5.6 µs
Gzip	best	40.1%	599 B	31.6 µs	5.4 µs
Brotli	fast	41.8%	582 B	24.1 µs	6.3 µs
Brotli	default	42.0%	580 B	26.1 µs	6.1 µs
Brotli	best	44.9%	551 B	1.6 ms	10.0 µs

1 KB Winner: Brotli best achieves highest ratio (44.9%), but Zstd offers best speed/ratio balance.

10 KB Data

Codec	Level	Ratio	Size	Compress	Decompress
LZ4 Frame	fast	93.6%	641 B	11.4 µs	6.2 µs
LZ4 Frame	default	93.6%	641 B	10.1 µs	6.4 µs
LZ4 Raw	default	93.9%	614 B	8.9 µs	2.7 µs
Snappy	default	89.8%	1,018 B	10.0 µs	2.7 µs
Zstd	fast	94.1%	595 B	16.9 µs	3.1 µs
Zstd	default	94.1%	595 B	15.5 µs	3.0 µs
Zstd	best	94.1%	592 B	60.7 µs	3.6 µs
Gzip	fast	92.9%	712 B	26.0 µs	10.4 µs
Gzip	default	93.1%	695 B	36.4 µs	12.1 µs
Gzip	best	93.1%	693 B	36.6 µs	12.7 µs
Brotli	fast	94.0%	604 B	33.1 µs	22.3 µs
Brotli	default	94.1%	595 B	40.1 µs	23.1 µs
Brotli	best	94.7%	529 B	978.5 µs	29.2 µs

10 KB Winner: Zstd achieves best ratio (94.1%) with fast compression.

100 KB Data

Codec	Level	Ratio	Size	Compress	Decompress
LZ4 Frame	fast	99.0%	1.0 KB	25.0 µs	29.7 µs
LZ4 Frame	default	99.0%	1.0 KB	23.0 µs	30.1 µs
LZ4 Raw	default	99.0%	968 B	11.6 µs	11.7 µs
Snappy	default	94.8%	5.1 KB	10.0 µs	11.6 µs
Zstd	fast	99.4%	599 B	19.7 µs	9.9 µs
Zstd	default	99.4%	599 B	19.1 µs	10.5 µs
Zstd	best	99.4%	596 B	176.2 µs	10.8 µs
Gzip	fast	98.6%	1.4 KB	63.5 µs	66.0 µs
Gzip	default	98.9%	1.0 KB	166.3 µs	62.4 µs
Gzip	best	98.9%	1.0 KB	311.7 µs	128.8 µs
Brotli	fast	99.4%	608 B	60.5 µs	74.5 µs
Brotli	default	99.4%	598 B	81.6 µs	76.4 µs
Brotli	best	99.5%	539 B	3.9 ms	89.0 µs

100 KB Winner: Zstd dominates with 99.4% ratio and fastest decompression.

1 MB Data

Codec	Level	Ratio	Size	Compress	Decompress
LZ4 Frame	fast	99.3%	6.9 KB	208.9 µs	270.4 µs
LZ4 Frame	default	99.3%	6.9 KB	214.8 µs	263.9 µs
LZ4 Raw	default	99.5%	4.4 KB	27.3 µs	123.2 µs
Snappy	default	95.3%	46.4 KB	31.7 µs	108.3 µs
Zstd	fast	99.9%	684 B	82.3 µs	87.5 µs
Zstd	default	99.9%	684 B	83.4 µs	86.5 µs
Zstd	best	99.9%	677 B	783.4 µs	82.8 µs
Gzip	fast	99.2%	7.5 KB	408.9 µs	412.3 µs
Gzip	default	99.6%	4.3 KB	1.4 ms	353.4 µs
Gzip	best	99.6%	4.3 KB	1.4 ms	347.3 µs
Brotli	fast	99.9%	616 B	751.1 µs	537.1 µs
Brotli	default	99.9%	608 B	767.1 µs	564.9 µs
Brotli	best	99.9%	535 B	11.6 ms	678.1 µs

1 MB Winner: Zstd achieves 99.9% ratio at 12 GB/s — unbeatable balance.

Throughput Charts

Compression Speed (1 MB)

LZ4 Raw    ████████████████████████████████████████ 36.6 GB/s
Snappy     ██████████████████████████████████ 31.6 GB/s
Zstd       █████████████ 12.0 GB/s
LZ4 Frame  █████ 4.8 GB/s
Gzip       ███ 2.4 GB/s
Brotli     █ 1.3 GB/s

Decompression Speed (1 MB)

Zstd       █████████████ 11.6 GB/s
Snappy     ██████████ 9.2 GB/s
LZ4 Raw    █████████ 8.1 GB/s
LZ4 Frame  ████ 3.8 GB/s
Gzip       ███ 2.4 GB/s
Brotli     ██ 1.9 GB/s

Compression Ratio (1 MB)

Zstd       ██████████████████████████████████████████████ 99.9%
Brotli     ██████████████████████████████████████████████ 99.9%
Gzip       █████████████████████████████████████████████ 99.6%
LZ4 Raw    █████████████████████████████████████████████ 99.5%
LZ4 Frame  ████████████████████████████████████████████ 99.3%
Snappy     ███████████████████████████████████████ 95.3%

Category Winners

Fastest Compression

LZ4 Raw — 36.6 GB/s

const compressed = try cz.compress(.lz4_raw, data, allocator);
// Requires: .expected_size for decompression

Fastest Decompression

Zstd (best level) — 12.1 GB/s

const compressed = try cz.compressWithOptions(.zstd, data, allocator, .{
    .level = .best,
});
// Slow to compress, fast to decompress

Best Compression Ratio

Brotli (best level) — 99.9%+

const compressed = try cz.compressWithOptions(.brotli, data, allocator, .{
    .level = .best,
});
// 535 bytes from 1 MB (test data)

Best Overall Balance

Zstd (default) — 12 GB/s compress, 11.6 GB/s decompress, 99.9% ratio

const compressed = try cz.compress(.zstd, data, allocator);

Memory Usage

Codec	Compression	Decompression
LZ4 Raw	984.8 KB	976.6 KB
LZ4 Frame	987.8 KB	1.0 MB
Snappy	1.1 MB	976.6 KB
Zstd	981.0 KB	976.6 KB
Gzip	984.4 KB	2.8 MB
Brotli	977.4 KB	1.8 MB

Most Memory-Efficient: Zstd and LZ4 Raw use ~input size only.

Running Benchmarks

# Run with optimizations (required for accurate results)
zig build bench -Doptimize=ReleaseFast

# Output includes:
# - Per-codec results at each data size
# - Throughput in MB/s and GB/s
# - Memory usage
# - CPU time

Methodology

Test Data

Mixed-pattern data designed for realistic compression:

25% — Repetitive text ("The quick brown fox...")
25% — Sequential bytes with variations
25% — Repetitive text (repeated)
25% — Varied pseudorandom data

Measurement

• Wall time: std.time.Timer
• CPU time: getrusage() system call
• Memory: Custom counting allocator
• Iterations: 20 measured runs after 3 warmup

Reproducibility

Results may vary based on:

• CPU architecture and generation
• Memory speed and cache sizes
• Operating system
• Data characteristics

Run benchmarks on your target hardware for accurate numbers.