facebook/zstd

Zstandard (zstd) is a compression algorithm created by Facebook, essentially a better, faster way to make files smaller. Compression is the technology that squishes data so it takes up less storage space and transfers faster over the internet. You might already encounter it daily without knowing: ZIP files, compressed web pages, and database backups all rely on compression. What makes Zstandard special is that it offers an unusually good combination of speed and compression quality. In benchmarks, it compresses data about 5 times faster than the older zlib standard (which is what most ZIP files use), while still making files nearly as small or smaller. When decompressing (opening the squished data back up), it's even faster, sometimes over 10 times quicker. This matters a lot for web servers that need to compress and decompress data thousands of times per second. For founders and vibe coders, you're unlikely to use this library directly, it works at a very low level. But if you're storing large amounts of data, running a web server, building a database, or shipping files to users, the tools and platforms you use may rely on Zstandard under the hood. Many databases, cloud storage services, and web servers have adopted it as their default compression method because it meaningfully reduces costs and improves speed. Created by Facebook (now Meta) and written in C (a low-level language that runs very close to the hardware for maximum speed), Zstandard has become an industry standard with 27,000+ GitHub stars and is trusted by major tech companies worldwide.