lizard
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Description:
Efficient compressor with very fast decompression
Type: Formula  |  Tracked Since: Dec 28, 2025
Links: Homepage  |  formulae.brew.sh
Category: System utilities
Tags: compression decompression lz4 algorithm performance
Install: brew install lizard
About:
Lizard is a fast entropy compressor that offers a balance between compression ratio and processing speed. It excels particularly in decompression performance, achieving speeds often exceeding 1 GB/s on modern hardware. This makes it an ideal choice for scenarios where data needs to be compressed once but decompressed frequently.
Key Features:
  • Very high decompression speeds (often >1GB/s)
  • Good compression ratio comparable to LZ4
  • Low memory usage during decompression
  • Supports both LIZv1 and LZ4 frame formats
Use Cases:
  • Compressing game assets for fast loading times
  • Optimizing web content delivery where client decompression speed is critical
  • Archiving data that requires frequent random access
Alternatives:
  • zstd – Offers higher compression ratios but generally slower decompression than Lizard.
  • lz4 – Lizard is a fork of LZ4 that offers better compression at the cost of slightly more CPU usage.
Version History
Detected Version Rev Change Commit
Sep 16, 2025 6:36am 0 VERSION_BUMP 6a421a98
Sep 14, 2024 3:09pm 0 VERSION_BUMP c004b79c