WinRAR and 7-Zip, one of its free alternatives, side by side.
Best for a free, no-frills archiver on Windows
Archive manager that creates and extracts RAR and ZIP files, sold as a one-time per-user license after a 40-day trial.
| Fact | 7-Zip | WinRAR |
|---|---|---|
| License | License: Open sourceLGPL-2.1-or-later | License: Paid |
| Maintenance | Status: Active | Status: Verified |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Android | No | Yes |
| Command line | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hostable | No | No |
| Works offline | Yes | Yes |
| No account needed | Yes | Yes |
| Parity with WinRAR | 83% | The reference |
License classes: Open source and Paid. Status rules: Active means a commit in the last 90 days. See the methodology.
How 7-Zip covers what people use WinRAR for.
| Feature | 7-Zip |
|---|---|
| Compression | |
| Create RAR archives | NoNote 1Extracts RAR but cannot create it because of the RAR license |
| Extract ZIP, 7z, TAR and ISO files | Yes |
| Split archives into volumes | Yes |
| Self-extracting archives | YesNote 2Creates Windows self-extracting .exe archives |
| Security | |
| AES-256 encryption | YesNote 3AES-256 for 7z and ZIP archives |
| Integration | |
| Right-click menu integration | Yes |
| Parity score | 83% |
| Format | 7-Zip | WinRAR |
|---|---|---|
| .rar | Opens onlyNote 1Extracts RAR and RAR5 but cannot create themPartial fidelity | Opens and savesFull fidelity |
| .zip | Opens and savesFull fidelity | Opens and savesFull fidelity |
| .7z | Opens and savesFull fidelity | Opens onlyNote 2Extracts 7z archives but cannot create themFull fidelity |