154 – Compression algorithms

Python 3.14 introduced a new module compression that provides a unified interface to access the five compression algorithms that Python supports:

• bz2

• gzip

• lzma

• zlib

• zstd (new in Python 3.14)

Here’s an example usage of zstd to compress a sequence of bytes:

from compression import zstd

data = "3.141592653589793".encode() * 20
compressed = zstd.compress(data)
ratio = len(compressed) / len(data)
print(ratio)  # 0.1  # <- 10 times smaller!

The algorithms bz2, gzip, lzma, and zlib, were already standalone modules in Python 3.13 and earlier, so they continue to be so, but you can also access them through the unified interface of the module compress.

Further reading:

• Module compression overview