Updated: 28 September 2026 · Applies to: Debian 12
Debian 9 and 10 are no longer supported, so this guide now uses Debian 12 (Ubuntu 24.04 works the same way).
Brotli compresses text better than gzip. On current Debian and Ubuntu you do not need to compile it: the command-line tool is packaged.
Install the tool
apt install brotli brotli -k style.css # creates style.css.br brotli -d style.css.br # decompress
Build from source (if you need the latest version)
apt install git cmake build-essential git clone https://github.com/google/brotli.git && cd brotli mkdir out && cd out && cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release .. && cmake --build . --config Release --target install
Tip: For websites, enable Brotli in the web server or CDN rather than compressing files by hand.
