Brutal ZipZIP compression that uses every core.
Brutal Zip compressed the Linux 6.6 source in 6 seconds. 7-Zip took 1 minute 17 on the same files. It finished first in all four of our published benchmarks, and the archives it makes are ordinary ZIP files that open anywhere.
Free for everyday archiving. Every install starts with a 30-day Pro trial. Windows 10 and 11.
Live replay of a real run: 81,741 files, 1.26 GB, zipped in 5.1 seconds. The totals and file-type breakdown are real; the speed curve is approximated. Point at the graph for details.
Add the files, press Create
Drop in files and folders, choose Deflate, Zstandard or Store, and set the level with one slider. Encrypt with AES-256 or split the archive into parts if you need to.
Rules per file type let documents compress hard while media that is already compressed is simply stored, so no time is spent squeezing what will not shrink.
Look inside without extracting
Open an archive and walk through it like a folder. The preview pane shows images, text and a hex view straight from the archive, with nothing written to disk.
Search by name or inside the files themselves, rename, move or delete entries in place, and pull out only the files you need.
See what is wrong with a damaged archive
The Diagnostic Viewer maps every byte of a ZIP file: which entry it belongs to, where its data starts and ends, and whether it checks out. Testing an archive verifies every entry against its stored checksum.
When something is broken, Pro can rebuild the archive's directory or salvage the readable files into a new archive.
Start from Explorer
Right-click an archive to open it or extract it, or right-click any file or folder to compress it. There is no need to open the app first.
Turn the entries on or off in Settings. On Windows 11 they sit under “Show more options”.
Also built in
The rest of what a ZIP tool should do, without the wait.
Three methods, your level
Deflate at levels 1 to 12, Zstandard at 1 to 22, or Store for no compression at all.
Encryption
AES-256, AES-192 and AES-128, plus ZipCrypto for older tools. Password-protected archives extract too.
Big and split archives
ZIP64 for archives over 4 GB, multi-part archives, Unicode file names and NTFS timestamps.
More than ZIP
Works with ZIP, TAR and RAR archives.
Extract your way
Everything or just a selection, with ask, always, never or rename when a file already exists.
Forgotten password?
Password recovery for ZIP archives you have locked yourself out of.
Command palette
Press Ctrl+K to reach any action. Light, dark and follow-system themes.
History you can replay
Past operations are kept with their speed graph.
Performance
Compression and extraction on two very different sets of files, against five other tools. Brutal Zip finished first in all four. Times shown; lower is faster.
- 1 Brutal Zip 0:06 1×
- 2 7-Zip 1:17 12.8×
- 3 WinRAR 2:06 21.0×
- 4 Windows 3:28 34.7×
- 5 BandiZip 9:45 97.5×
- 6 PeaZip 10:40 107×
- 1 Brutal Zip 0:22 1×
- 2 WinRAR 1:52 5.1×
- 3 BandiZip 2:00 5.5×
- 4 7-Zip 2:20 6.4×
- 5 PeaZip 3:02 8.3×
- 6 Windows 13:21 36.4×
- 1 Brutal Zip 0:02 1×
- 2 BandiZip 0:05 2.5×
- 3 WinRAR 0:13 6.5×
- 4 Windows 0:39 19.5×
- 5 PeaZip 1:53 56.5×
- 6 7-Zip 2:03 61.5×
- 1 Brutal Zip 0:02 1×
- 2 BandiZip 0:04 2.0×
- 3 WinRAR 0:05 2.5×
- 4 7-Zip 0:06 3.0×
- 5 PeaZip 0:06 3.0×
- 6 Windows 0:09 4.5×
Times are min:sec, wall-clock to completion. Same files, same drive, cold cache, each tool at its default settings. Results vary by hardware and file type. Pro and the 30-day trial use every core; the free version uses up to 4 threads, so it will be slower than these figures on a many-core machine.
Every core works
Most ZIP tools compress one file at a time. Brutal Zip compresses many at once, and you can change the thread count while it runs.
Its own engine
The compression engine is written for speed on modern processors. What it produces is still a standard ZIP.
No wasted effort
Files that are already compressed, like photos and video, are spotted early and stored as they are.
Play video
See the speed for yourself
Every tool running the same job, side by side: 7-Zip, WinRAR, BandiZip, PeaZip and Windows 11.
Reproduce it yourself
Download the files we tested and time each tool at its default settings, compressing and then extracting. We clear the Windows file cache between runs so every tool starts cold.
- Linux 6.6 source (81,741 small files)
linux-6.6.tar.xz - enwik9 (one 1 GB text file)
mattmahoney.net/dc/textdata.html
How it compares
21 capabilities across Brutal Zip, 7-Zip and WinRAR.
| Capability | Brutal Zip | 7-Zip | WinRAR |
|---|---|---|---|
| Native BrutalDeflate compression | ✓ Yes | ✗ No | ✗ No |
| Zstandard support | ✓ Yes | ✗ No | ✗ No |
| One-shot small file path | ✓ Yes | ✗ No | ✗ No |
| Incompressibility detection | ✓ Yes | ✗ No | ✗ No |
| Per-type compression policy | ✓ Yes | ✗ No | ~ Partial |
| AES-256 encryption | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Streaming block compressor | ✓ Yes | ✗ No | ✗ No |
| Capability | Brutal Zip | 7-Zip | WinRAR |
|---|---|---|---|
| Work-stealing thread scheduler | ✓ Yes | ✗ No | ✗ No |
| File-level parallelism | ✓ Yes | ✗ No | ✗ No |
| Dynamic thread adjustment mid-operation | ✓ Yes | ✗ No | ✗ No |
| NUMA-aware allocation | ✓ Yes | ✗ No | ✗ No |
| Adaptive buffer sizing | ✓ Yes | ✗ No | ✗ No |
| Memory-mapped large file I/O | ✓ Yes | ✗ No | ✗ No |
| SIMD buffer operations | ✓ Yes | ~ Partial | ✗ No |
| Capability | Brutal Zip | 7-Zip | WinRAR |
|---|---|---|---|
| Archive repair & salvage | ✓ Yes | ~ Partial | ✓ Yes |
| Diagnostic byte-map viewer | ✓ Yes | ✗ No | ✗ No |
| Explorer shell integration | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Full command-line interface | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Archive viewer with preview | ✓ Yes | ~ Partial | ✓ Yes |
| Multi-part archive support | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Portable (no install) | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | ~ Partial |
Free vs Pro
Brutal Zip is free to use. A one-time $15.99 Pro license adds the power-user tools, and every install starts with a 30-day Pro trial.
Free
$0Everyday archiving, forever. No account needed.
- Create and extract ZIP, TAR and RAR
- Deflate, Zstandard and Store, with AES or ZipCrypto encryption
- Split and multi-part archives
- Archive viewer, preview pane and in-archive search
- Integrity test, archive info and recent list
- Diagnostic Viewer, read-only
- Password recovery for forgotten ZIP passwords
- Explorer menu integration
- Up to 4 compression threads
Pro
$15.99 one-timeEverything in Free, plus the power-user tools. The license is not tied to one machine, so it covers every computer you own.
- Every CPU core, with no thread cap
- Scripting and automation, with a built-in editor and debugger
- Archive repair: rebuild the directory, salvage what is readable
- Setup Wizard for guided create and extract
- Compare archives side by side
- Summarize with AI
Not ready to buy? The 30-day Pro trial includes everything, and sending feedback extends it by another 30 days.
Download
The app is free. Pro features are unlocked with a one-time license, or free for the first 30 days.
Brutal Zip
FreeSystem Requirements
- Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit)
- No runtime required — self-contained
- ~150 MB disk space
Installation notes
- There is no .NET runtime to install. Brutal Zip is fully self-contained (Native AOT) and runs out of the box on Windows 10 and 11.
- The Explorer menu entries and the optional Windows Defender exclusion are managed from Settings → Explorer.
- The Mica window backdrop (Settings → Application Theme) requires Windows 11.
Looking for a previous version? Legacy downloads.
Copying files too?
Brutal Copy 2 finished first in all six of our copy benchmarks, up to 21 times faster than Windows Explorer.