Crates / flate2 / Alternatives
Rust crate alternatives · data Oct 24, 2026
Alternatives to flate2
Short answerThe closest alternatives to flate2 on crates.io data are bzip2 (435K real downloads a day), leb128fmt (630K real downloads a day), zstd-safe (1.1M real downloads a day). Of the 8 we list, the most used is toml_datetime, and 6 shipped a release in the last year. flate2 itself gets 2,127,583 a day with 7,758 dependents.
Every alternative we found
| Alternative | Real downloads a day | vs flate2 | Dependents | Last release | Why it is listed | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| bzip2 Established | 435,362 | 0.20x | 580 | 12mo | category API bindings, category Compression, keyword "encoding" | side by side |
| leb128fmt Pulled in | 629,549 | 0.30x | 4 | 3.1y | category Compression, keyword "encoding" | compare |
| zstd-safe Pulled in | 1,111,608 | 0.52x | 55 | 8d | category API bindings, category Compression | compare |
| zstd Widely used | 1,083,388 | 0.51x | 2,614 | 8d | category API bindings, category Compression | side by side |
| zstd-sys Pulled in | 1,052,310 | 0.49x | 57 | 8d | category API bindings, category Compression | compare |
| toml_datetime Pulled in | 3,215,444 | 1.51x | 29 | 16d | keyword "encoding" | compare |
| toml Foundational | 2,960,881 | 1.39x | 20,777 | 15d | keyword "encoding" | compare |
| toml_edit Widely used | 2,715,071 | 1.28x | 1,989 | 15d | keyword "encoding" | compare |
How to choose
- Same job, not the same API. Each line is listed because it shares a crates.io category or keyword with flate2; read its description before you swap.
- More dependents means more answered questions and a smaller chance it disappears.
- Check the last release against how fast you need fixes. For flate2: is it still maintained?
Rules
Alternatives = tracked crates (top 1000 by downloads) that share a specific crates.io category (2 points each) or keyword (3 points each) with flate2, most similar first; its own parts (same name prefix) and crates it depends on or that depend on it are left out, because those are companions, not substitutes. Real downloads = quiet-day median, crates.io data Oct 24, 2026. Built when we find 3 or more.
Up next
The closest alternative: Established and steady. 435,362 real downloads a day.bzip2Rust crate. Bindings to libbzip2 for bzip2 compression and decompression exposed as Reader/Writer streams. Real use: 435K downloads a day on quiet days; 580 crates...Read it next →Also worth your time