Measured - byte-exact - 2026

Pedulli vs LZFSE

measured head-to-head - structured data classes - byte-exact SHA-256 verified

TL;DR - honest
Apple LZFSE targets Apple-platform throughput at a zstd-level-3-ish ratio. Pedulli is a best-of-N racer - it races xz, zstd, brotli and your data's SRD math, keeps the smallest verified output, so it is never larger than the best standard codec (worst case +1 byte). It wins outright on structured data and ties the best codec on already-optimal/random data; LZFSE wins on macOS/iOS native integration and energy efficiency on Apple silicon. Different design targets.

The measured table

All numbers measured on this server, roundtrip-verified SHA-256 byte-exact. Proofs available on request.

Input	LZFSE	Pedulli (best-of-N)	Δ
1 MiB of zeros	692 B	13 B	much smaller (redundant input)
JSON 31 KB	3,894 B	1,265 B	-68%
HTML 161 KB	49,210 B	38,757 B	-21.2%
Apache logs 3.5 MB	289 KB	217 KB	-24.9%
MP4 master 10 MB	9,651,123 B	9,430,108 B	-221 KB
Random bytes 1 MB	1,048,608 B (+32 B)	1,048,577 B (+1 B)	31 B less overhead

What LZFSE does better (honest)

Apple-silicon energy efficiency. Designed alongside the M-series chips for low power.
Native in iOS/macOS APIs (Compression framework). Zero-dependency on Apple platforms.
Decompression throughput comparable to lz4 on supported hardware.

What Pedulli does that LZFSE does not

Never larger than the best standard codec. Races xz, zstd, brotli and SRD math, keeps the smallest verified output - worst case +1 byte, vs LZFSE's +32 on random data.
Best-of-N racing. Wins outright on every structured class measured; ties the best codec on already-optimal data.
Cross-platform. Web / REST / API, not Apple-locked.
Zero data retention. GDPR by design, EU-sovereign.

When to use which

Use LZFSE for iOS/macOS native file IO where power matters more than ratio. Use Pedulli when storage cost compounds across a large corpus regardless of platform - plus the per-file +1 byte never-worse floor.

Run the free trial Pricing / API All benchmarks

More comparisons: lz4 - zstd - Snappy - LZO