Zstd
Zstd (Zstandard) is a fast lossless data compression algorithm developed by Facebook, designed to provide high compression ratios with very fast compression and decompression speeds. It is widely used for data storage, network transmission, and file archiving, supporting multiple compression levels to balance speed and size. The algorithm is implemented as a library and command-line tool, with bindings available for various programming languages.
Developers should learn Zstd when they need efficient compression for applications like log files, databases, or real-time data streams, where both speed and compression ratio are critical. It is particularly useful in high-performance computing, gaming, and cloud storage scenarios, as it outperforms older algorithms like gzip and bzip2 in many benchmarks. Use cases include reducing storage costs, speeding up data transfers over networks, and optimizing in-memory data handling in distributed systems.