Crates / Compare / flate2 vs bzip2
Rust crates side by side · data Oct 24, 2026
flate2 vs bzip2
Short answerBy steady daily use, flate2 is bigger: 2,127,583 real downloads a day against 435,362 for bzip2 (4.9x). 7,758 crates depend on flate2 and 580 on bzip2. flate2 last shipped 57 days ago, bzip2 12 months ago.
flate2
Widely usedWidely used and steady.
7,758 crates depend on it; downloads don't spike on releases.
DEFLATE compression and decompression exposed as Read/BufRead/Write streams. Supports miniz_oxide and multiple zlib implementations. Supports zlib, gzip, and raw deflate streams.
bzip2
EstablishedEstablished and steady.
580 crates depend on it; no release in the last 90 days, so its count is all steady use.
Bindings to libbzip2 for bzip2 compression and decompression exposed as Reader/Writer streams.
flate2bzip2 · 100% = that crate's normal quiet day, so a spike to 300% is triple its usual traffic
How they relate
- Often used together: 2 tracked crates depend on both (zip, compression-codecs). They are not always either/or.
Every number, side by side
| Same window, same method | flate2 | bzip2 |
|---|---|---|
| Real downloads a day | 2,127,583 | 435,362 |
| Crates that depend on it | 7,758 | 580 |
| Last release | 1.1.10, 57 days ago | 0.6.1, 12 months ago |
| Trend vs the field | +4% | -3% |
| Release-window share | 1.9% | 0.0% |
| Downloads in the window | 196,971,539 | 40,324,378 |
| All-time downloads | 779,541,321 | 183,417,884 |
| Versions published | 78 | 25 |
| License | MIT OR Apache-2.0 | MIT OR Apache-2.0 |
| MSRV | 1.67.0 | 1.82.0 |
| First published | Nov 11, 2014 | Nov 13, 2014 |
Which to pick
- Downloads tell you what is common, not what fits. Each crate's own description above says what it is for; when the jobs differ, pick by the job.
- When both fit, prefer the one more crates depend on (flate2, 7,758 dependents): more eyes, more answered questions, and you may already have it in your tree.
- Check the release dates against your own pace: flate2 57 days ago, bzip2 12 months ago.
Also in this space
Method
Real downloads = the median day with no release that day or the day before, from the crates.io API (Jul 27, 2026 to Oct 23, 2026). Raw crates.io counts include CI and bots and run high (why); the method is from our 90-day study.
Up next
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