Life & fun · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to misa77 - a codec that decodes 2x faster than LZ4 (at better ratios)

I've spent the last few months working on this codec. It has the following characteristics: - SOTA decompression throughput in its ratio class - Decent ratios (comparable to LZ4 at high effort levels) - Slow compression Most of the gains can be attributed to reducing branches and making decompression very friendly to out-of-order cores, by using a smart format. Results on the tarred Silesia corpus on Intel x86-64 follow: codec decode ratio encode misa77 -0 5219 MB/s 42.64% 54.5 MB/s misa77 -1 4274 MB/s 39.65% 51.2 MB/s lz4 2505 MB/s 47.59% 371 MB/s lz4hc -12…

misa77 is a data compression codec designed to decompress data significantly faster than LZ4 while achieving comparable or better compression ratios. It targets developers and systems requiring high decompression… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes.

1
10-40% faster LZMA decoder using x86 CMOVcc▲205
Faster LZMA decoder for x86 CPUs (patch for XZ Utils). - faster_lzma_decoder_x86.patch
2021 · gist.github.com · its alternatives →
2
ZXC – Asymmetric, +40% decode vs. LZ4 on ARM (C, BSD-3, Fuzzed)▲28
Hello HN, author here. I built ZXC, a lossless compression library designed specifically for "Write Once, Read Many" scenarios (Game assets, Firmware, App bundles). The Concept: Standard real-time codecs (LZ4, Snappy) are designed for symmetry. ZXC explores an asymmetric approach: it spends significantly more CPU cycles at compression time to generate a bitstream specifically structured for modern, wide-issue execution pipelines (maximizing Instruction Level Parallelism). Performance (Verified via lzbench integration): ZXC was merged into the official lzbench repository monday. ARM64 (Apple…
Dec 2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
3
Micro LZMA decoder (x86 assembly code golf)▲56
Micro LZMA decoder. Contribute to ilyakurdyukov/micro-lzmadec development by creating an account on GitHub.
2022 · github.com · its alternatives →
4OA
Overfitted a 900KB Transformer to Compress a 100MB CSV into 7MB▲112
I built an experiment that uses an overfitted transformer and arithmetic coding to compress individual files. Instead of training the model to generalize, I train a 900KB transformer to memorize a single file and predict the next byte. Those predictions are fed into an arithmetic coder to produce the compressed output. On a 100MB NYC taxi CSV, it compresses to about 7MB (~0.5 bits/byte). On a 100MB slice of enwik9, it compresses to about 21MB (~1.68 bits/byte). It's pretty slow right now (roughly 20–30 minutes of training and 45 minutes each for compression and decompression on my…
Jun 2026 · its alternatives →
5
Kilo Code for VS Code▲896
Parallel agents, diff reviewer, and multi-model comparisons
May 2026 · kilo.ai · its alternatives →
6
Rapidgzip – Truly Parallel Gzip Decompression with 10 GB/s▲35
I have posted a much earlier version of this over a year ago [0]. Since then a lot has changed. Obviously, the name has changed. This happened for the paper publication [1]. I have also optimized the speed, integrated ISA-L for special cases, limited the compression-ratio-dependent maximum memory consumption, and finally added parallelized CRC32 computation, which adds ~5% overhead no matter the number of cores used. At this point, I am leaning towards calling it production-ready although there are still many ideas for improvements. Redoing the benchmarks of the older Show HN, would look…
2023 · github.com · its alternatives →
7
Reduce SQLite database size by up to 80% with transparent compression▲420
Transparent dictionary-based row-level compression for SQLite - phiresky/sqlite-zstd
2022 · github.com · its alternatives →
8
80% faster, 50% less memory, 0% loss of accuracy Llama finetuning▲385
Hi HN! I'm just sharing a project I've been working on during the LLM Efficiency Challenge - you can now finetune Llama with QLoRA 5x faster than Huggingface's original implementation on your own local GPU. Some highlights: 1. Manual autograd engine - hand derived backprop steps. 2. QLoRA / LoRA 80% faster, 50% less memory. 3. All kernels written in OpenAI's Triton language. 4. 0% loss in accuracy - no approximation methods - all exact. 5. No change of hardware necessary. Supports NVIDIA GPUs since 2018+. CUDA 7.5+. 6. Flash Attention support via Xformers. 7. Supports 4bit and 16bit…
2023 · github.com · its alternatives →
9
(bits) of a Libc, Optimized for Wasm▲78
I make a no-CGO Go SQLite driver, by compiling the amalgamation to Wasm, then loading the result with wazero (a CGO-free Wasm runtime). To compile SQLite, I use wasi-sdk, which uses wasi-libc, which is based on musl. It's been said that musl is slow(er than glibc), which is true, to a point. musl uses SWAR on a size_t to implement various functions in string.h. This is fine, except size_t is just 32-bit on Wasm. I found that implementing a few of those functions with Wasm SIMD128 can make them go around 4x faster. Other functions don't even use SWAR; redoing those can make them 16x faster.…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
10
Minimax – A Compressed-First, Microcoded RISC-V CPU▲171
RISC-V's compressed instruction (RVC) extension is intended as an add-on to the regular, 32-bit instruction set, not a replacement or competitor. Its designers intended RVC instructions to be expanded into regular 32-bit RV32I equivalents via a pre-decoder. What happens if we explicitly architect a RISC-V CPU to execute RVC instructions, and "mop up" any RV32I instructions that aren't convenient via a microcode layer? What architectural optimizations are unlocked as a result? "Minimax" is an experimental RISC-V implementation intended to establish if an RVC-optimized CPU is, in practice, any…
2022 · github.com · its alternatives →
11
GPT‑5.3‑Codex‑Spark▲277
An ultra-fast model for real-time coding in Codex
Feb 2026 · openai.com · its alternatives →
12
Prometeo – a Python-to-C transpiler for high-performance computing▲166
An experimental Python-to-C transpiler and domain specific language for embedded high-performance computing - zanellia/prometeo
2021 · github.com · its alternatives →
13
SQZ – Low complexity, scalable lossy to lossless image compression▲7
I'd like to share a little toy project of mine, a really simple image codec that can do lossy to full lossless image compression with complete scalability at a byte level granularity - you can compress an image just once, even fully losslessly if needed, and then get any lossy version possible by simply stopping decompression at any offset in the compressed data. This "encode onde, serve many" approach is especially interesting for providing downscaled low quality image previews (LQIP) in as tight a storage budget as possible, and then allowing seamless, transparent refinement as deemed…
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
14
I wrote a Java decompiler in pure C language▲172
The world's fastest apk (android)/java open source decompiler - neocanable/garlic
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
15
bef – a tool that encodes/decodes interleaved erasure coded streams▲59
Block Erasure Format - An extensible, fast, and usable file utility to encode and decode interleaved erasure coded streams of data. - gbletr42/bef
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
16
LoopMix128 – Fast C PRNG (.46ns), 2^128 Period, BigCrush/PractRand Pass▲76
LoopMix128 is a fast C PRNG I wrote for non-cryptographic tasks. GitHub (MIT): https://github.com/danielcota/LoopMix128 Highlights: * ~0.37 ns/value (GCC 11.4, -O3 -march=native), 98% faster than xoroshiro128++ and PCG64. * Passes TestU01 BigCrush & PractRand (32TB). * Guaranteed 2^128 period. * Proven injective (192-bit state) via Z3 SMT solver; allows parallel streams. * Core requires only stdint.h. Seeking feedback on design, use cases, or further testing.
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
17
Fast integer compression library in C▲45
A very fast scalar implementation for Frame Of Reference integer compression. - cruppstahl/libfor
2015 · github.com · its alternatives →
18
Assembly to C code Decompiler▲98
2016 · decompiler.org · its alternatives →
19
TurboQuant for vector search – 2-4 bit compression▲89
A vector index built on TurboQuant, written in Rust with Python bindings - RyanCodrai/turbovec
Mar 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
20
Thread-Parallel Decompression and Random Access to Gzip Files (Pragzip)▲15
Hello HN, I'm very excited to have finished a gzip decoder that can speed up decompression using threads. On my Ryzen 3900X, I measured a 8x speedup over standard gzip, reaching 1.6 GB/s for a synthetic file with a consistent compression ratio of 1.3. A functional decompressor like this is kind of a first, that's why I am excited. Pragzip implements the two-staged decompression idea put forward with pugz, which unfortunately only works with gzipped text files not arbitrary files and has many more limitations. I think my main contribution over pugz might be a fast (~10 MB/s)…
2022 · github.com · its alternatives →
21
A fast JSON library for Go▲119
Fast JSON encoder/decoder compatible with encoding/json for Go - goccy/go-json
2021 · github.com · its alternatives →
22
Mini_gzip – embeddable, minimal, in-memory Gzip API▲21
Embeddable minimal in-memory GZIP decompression library for embedded systems - wkoszek/mini_gzip
2015 · github.com · its alternatives →
23CD
Compressed directories on Linux▲70
2017 · excamera.com · its alternatives →
24
A Fast, Malloc-Free C++14 Json Parser and Encoder▲98
Meta programming utilities for C++14. Merged in matt-42/lithium - matt-42/iod
2014 · github.com · its alternatives →

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