HuacalIn short
- Against WinRAR, Huacal’s 7z is 2.9 times faster than rar at its highest level, and it also comes out slightly smaller (56.9 MB vs 58.4 MB).
- Against 7-Zip, Huacal compresses faster in all four match-ups, up to 4.6 times. But 7-Zip makes the smaller archive in all four: 13% smaller in 7z.
- When extracting, Huacal is the fastest with zip. With 7z, 7-Zip takes 15% less time.
Compressing Extracting How it was measured Why 7-Zip comes out smaller Which one suits you
Compressing
Each row is a separate match-up with its own rounds, so Huacal’s time at the same level shifts a little from row to row: always compare within a row. The percentage is the archive size against the original 189.6 MB.
| Match-up | Huacal | The other one | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| zip “Balanced” · WinRAR zip, normal | 1.59 s · 71.8 MB (37.9%) | 2.47 s · 69.2 MB (36.5%) | 1.6× faster; 2.6 MB bigger |
| 7z “Balanced” · WinRAR rar, best | 2.76 s · 56.9 MB (30.0%) | 7.93 s · 58.4 MB (30.8%) | 2.9× faster and smaller |
| zip “Balanced” · 7-Zip zip, normal | 1.44 s · 71.8 MB (37.9%) | 1.58 s · 68.5 MB (36.1%) | about as fast; 3.3 MB bigger |
| zip “Maximum” · 7-Zip zip, ultra | 1.97 s · 70.4 MB (37.1%) | 8.62 s · 67.4 MB (35.6%) | 4.4× faster; 3 MB bigger |
| 7z “Balanced” · 7-Zip 7z, normal | 3.22 s · 56.9 MB (30.0%) | 14.85 s · 49.6 MB (26.2%) | 4.6× faster; 7-Zip 13% smaller |
| 7z “Maximum” · 7-Zip 7z, ultra | 13.18 s · 53.2 MB (28.1%) | 27.67 s · 48.0 MB (25.3%) | 2.1× faster; 7-Zip 10% smaller |
The number that matters most is in the fifth row: 7-Zip’s “normal” 7z (49.6 MB) is smaller than Huacal’s “Maximum” 7z (53.2 MB). If you want the smallest possible archive, 7-Zip wins.
Extracting
All three programs extract the same archive.
| Archive | Huacal | WinRAR | 7-Zip |
|---|---|---|---|
| 71.8 MB zip | 2.61 to 2.76 s | 3.94 s | 2.83 s |
| 56.9 MB 7z | 3.77 s | — | 3.20 s |
WinRAR extracting 7z was not measured.
How it was measured
- The files: 189.6 MB across 3,402 files of every kind: source code, programs, images and PDFs. Something like a real project folder, not a single text file that compresses extremely well.
- The computer: the same one for everything, a Windows 11 PC with a 20-core processor.
- The versions: WinRAR 7.11, 7-Zip 26.03, and Huacal as it stood on September 11, 2026, two weeks before 0.1.0.
- The levels: each Huacal level against the other program’s equivalent: “Balanced” against “normal”, “Maximum” against “ultra”. Against WinRAR, rar runs at its best level because that is the one closest to the size of Huacal’s 7z.
- Interleaved: rounds alternate the two programs (Huacal, the other, Huacal, the other…) instead of running all of one first. That way disk caching and the antivirus affect both equally.
- Median: each result is the median of 5 rounds when compressing and 8 when extracting. A median is not thrown off by one odd round.
Why all the care: on this computer, the same test repeated took anywhere from 2.3 to 13.9 seconds, depending on what the disk and the antivirus were doing. The first batch, run without interleaving, gave the opposite verdict. If you compare compressors on your own PC, interleave and take the median.
Why 7-Zip comes out smaller, and Huacal faster
Size depends mostly on how hard the compressor searches for repetition inside the data. 7-Zip’s has more than twenty years of tuning and searches more thoroughly. Huacal uses compressors written in Rust that search less, so they leave more bytes. Raising Huacal’s level has already been tried and does not close the gap: it is not a matter of settings.
The speed comes from two decisions:
- It works in parallel. It spreads the files across every processor core instead of compressing them one after another.
- It does not recompress what is already compressed. JPG and PNG photos, video, music, PDFs, Office documents and other archives barely shrink. Huacal stores them as they are and spends no time on them.
Which one suits you
- If size matters most, say for a large backup you will keep for years, use 7-Zip on “ultra”.
- If you want it done quickly, from the right-click menu, with no ads and no reminders to buy a license, Huacal does the job in less time.
- If you are coming from WinRAR, Huacal’s 7z gives you a slightly smaller archive than rar, in a third of the time, with no license to pay for.
If you get a different result on your PC, tell us at [email protected].