bzip2 is described as 'File compressor that uses the Burrows–Wheeler algorithm. It is only a compressor for single files and not a full archiver' and is a File Compressor in the os & utilities category. There are six alternatives to bzip2 for a variety of platforms, including Linux, Mac, Windows, BSD and Haiku apps. The best bzip2 alternative is gzip, which is both free and Open Source. Other great apps like bzip2 are Rapidgzip, DAR, zlib and XZ Utils.
GNU Gzip is a software application used for file compression and decompression. It is based on the DEFLATE algorithm, which is a combination of LZ77 and Huffman coding.
dar is a shell command that backs up directory trees and files, taking care of hard links, Extended Attributes, sparse files, MacOS's file forks, any inode type (including Solaris Door inodes), etc.
zlib is a software library used for data compression. It is an abstraction of the DEFLATE compression algorithm used in gzip file compression program. zlib is also a crucial component of many software platforms including Linux, Mac OS X, and iOS.
XZ Utils is free general-purpose data compression software with high compression ratio. XZ Utils were written for POSIX-like systems, but also work on some not-so-POSIX systems. XZ Utils are the successor to LZMA Utils.
