zstd

Fast, modern compression with excellent speed/ratio trade-off.

low risk

interactive breakdown — edit the command and press Explain
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What it does

zstd (Zstandard) offers near-gzip speed with compression ratios approaching xz. The --fast flag prioritizes speed; higher -N levels improve ratio. Now the default compression for Linux kernel packages and increasingly common in DevOps tooling.

Common flags
FlagMeaning
-d --decompressDecompress
-k --keepKeep source file
-NCompression level 1-19 (default: 3)
--fastUltra-fast compression (sacrifices ratio)
-T --threadsNumber of threads
Examples
zstd -k file.tarCompress keeping original · explain & risk-check →
zstd -d file.tar.zstDecompress · explain & risk-check →
tar -I zstd -cf archive.tar.zst /data/Create zstd-compressed tar archive · explain & risk-check →
zstd --fast -T 0 -k large.tarFastest compression using all cores · explain & risk-check →
Pro tip

For backup pipelines, zstd is the modern choice: `tar c /data | zstd -T 0 -9 -o backup.tar.zst` — 3-4x faster than xz with only slightly worse compression.

Related
xz gzip tar
Open the full explainer →More in Files & Archives

Reference text is hand-written and may be incomplete — check man zstd for your version. Test destructive commands on a non-production system first.