zstd: Fast Zstandard Compression on Linux

Updated: 28 September 2026 · Applies to: zstd 1.5.5 to 1.5.7 on AlmaLinux and Rocky Linux 9 and 10, RHEL 9 and 10, Ubuntu 24.04 and 26.04, Debian 13

Zstandard (zstd) is a compression tool developed at Meta (Facebook). It compresses about as well as gzip or better, while being much faster, and it decompresses very quickly at every level. That makes it a good choice for backups, database dumps and log archives. It is in the main repositories of every current distribution, and many already use it for their own packages.

Install zstd

dnf install zstd       # AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux, RHEL
apt install zstd       # Ubuntu, Debian

Check the version with zstd -V.

Compress and decompress files

zstd backup.sql                 # creates backup.sql.zst, keeps the original
zstd --rm backup.sql            # remove the original after compressing
zstd -d backup.sql.zst          # decompress (or: unzstd backup.sql.zst)
zstdcat backup.sql.zst | less   # read without unpacking

Unlike gzip, zstd keeps the original file unless you add --rm.

Choose speed or size

zstd -1 file        # fastest
zstd -3 file        # default
zstd -19 file       # smallest of the normal levels, slow
zstd -T0 -10 file   # use all CPU cores

Levels go from 1 to 19 (up to 22 with --ultra). Decompression speed stays high at every level, so higher levels cost time only when compressing. -T0 uses one thread per CPU core, which matters for large files.

Folders: tar with zstd

tar --zstd -cf site.tar.zst /var/www/site      # create
tar --zstd -xf site.tar.zst                    # extract
tar --zstd -tf site.tar.zst                    # list contents

GNU tar on all the systems above supports --zstd. To pass options such as the level or threads, use tar -I 'zstd -T0 -10' -cf site.tar.zst /var/www/site.

Compress on the fly

mysqldump mydb | zstd -T0 > mydb.sql.zst
zstd -dc mydb.sql.zst | mysql mydb

Check an archive

zstd -t backup.sql.zst      # test integrity
zstd -l backup.sql.zst      # show sizes and ratio

Official documentation: Zstandard and zstd on GitHub.