Newsgroup: it.comp.lang.visual-basic
Titolo: Feature Comparison of Popular Zip Compression Components





 

Feature Comparison of Popular Zip 
Compression Components


22 October 2002


There are many Zip compression components 
in the marketplace. This web page is a summary of the most popular Zip 
components available and provides a side-by-side comparison of the features and 
pricing of each. This review focuses on components used by Microsoft developers 
in Visual Basic, ASP, Visual C++, and Visual FoxPro applications.


Detailed Feature 
Comparison


This web page reviews the following 
commercial Zip components:








Company Name and 
      Location


Product


Pricing 
  Summary




Dart Communications, Inc.
(New York, 
      USA)


Power TCP Zip Compression 
      Tool




$249 w/ 30-day email 
      support
extras:
Standard support: $249/year
Priority support: 
      $499/year
Platinum support: $1800/year 




Xceed Software, Inc.
(Quebec, 
      Canada)


Xceed Zip Compression 
      Library




$299 1-User
$599 
      Team4
$899 Team8
$1499 Site License
$99 
      upgrades
Self-extractor: $399 and up.
Support 
    included




Chilkat Software, 
      Inc.
(Illinois, USA)


Chilkat Zip


$169 
      1-Developer
$373 4-Developer
$557 8-Developer
$929 
      Site-License
Upgrades free
Includes varying amount of free support 
      points for incident-based phone & email support.
Special pricing 
      for competitive upgrades and educational.




Inner Media, Inc.
(New Hampshire, 
      USA)


DynaZip 
      MAX




$299 1-Developer
(other 
      licensing options unknown)
upgrades from $70 to $149 
      (approx)
Support included




Polar Software
(Croatia, 
      Europe)


Polar Zip 
      Professional


$199 
      1-Developer
$399 4-Developer
$ 599 8-Developer
$999 
      Site-License
Upgrade from $99 to $150
Email 
  support


Feature 
Comparison








Zip/Unzip 
      Features


Dart


InnerMedia


Chilkat


Xceed


Polar




Create a new Zip


yes


yes


yes


yes


yes




Delete files in a 
    Zip


yes


yes


yes


yes


yes




Add files to an existing 
      Zip


yes


yes


yes


yes


yes




Zip entire directories and 
      subdirectories recursively


yes


yes


yes


yes


yes




Add newer files to Zip 
      (Refresh)


no


yes


yes


yes


yes




Memory-to-memory compression 
      (1) 


yes


yes


yes


yes


yes




File-to-memory compression 
      (2) 


no


yes


yes


yes


no




Memory-to-file 
      compression.


yes


yes


yes


yes


yes




Unzip to memory


yes


yes


yes


yes


yes




Inflate from compressed data 
      in memory


yes


yes


yes


yes


yes




Delete files after 
      Zipping


no


yes


no


yes


yes




Wildcard zipping / 
      unzip


yes


yes


yes


yes


yes




Inflate to String (with 
      control over CRLF line endings)


no


yes


yes


no


yes




Copy into Zip without 
      compression


no


yes


yes


yes


yes




Add to Zip from already 
      compressed data.


yes


yes


yes


no


no




Memory access to compressed 
      data (3)


no


no


yes


no


no




Unzip newer 
    (Refresh)


no


no


no


yes


yes




Ability to set exclusion 
      wildcards when Zipping


no


yes


yes


yes


yes




Merge Zips


no


no


yes


yes


no




Limit operations based on 
      file attributes (hidden, system, etc.
)


no


yes


yes


yes


yes




Open Zip File Already Mapped 
      in Memory (4)


no


no


yes


no


no




Work on temporary Zip 
      files


no


yes


yes


yes


yes




Specify location where temp 
      files are located


no


yes


yes


yes


yes




Log to Diagnostics 
    File


no


yes


yes


no


no




Memory usage constant 
      regardless of Zip size? (5)


no


yes


yes


yes


no




Encryption 
      Features


Dart


InnerMedia


Chilkat


Xceed


Polar




Password-Protection (PKZip 
      Encryption)


no


yes


no


yes


no




AES Strong 
    Encryption


yes


no


yes


no


yes




Blowfish/Twofish 
      Encryption


no


no


yes


no


no




Misc 
Features


Dart


InnerMedia


Chilkat


Xceed


Polar




Span multiple disks


yes


yes


no


yes


yes




Global Zip File 
    Comment


yes


yes


yes


yes


yes




Add / Modify Comments for 
      individual files in the ZIp


yes


yes


yes


yes


yes




Zip directory 
access


yes


yes


yes


yes


yes




Events


Dart


InnerMedia


Chilkat


Xceed


Polar




File-by-File Zip / Unzip 
      Events


yes


yes


yes


yes


yes




Percentage complete Zip/Unzip 
      Events


no


yes


yes


yes


yes




Bytes processed Zip/Unzip 
      Events


yes


no


no


yes


yes




Abort before 
    complete


yes


yes


yes


yes


yes




Self-Extracting 
      Executabes


Dart


InnerMedia


Chilkat


Xceed


Polar




Create self-extracting 
      Zips


yes


no


yes


yes*


yes




Embed ZIP as Resource into 
      EXE


no


no


yes


no


no




Open Zip from embedded 
      resource in EXE (6)


no


no


yes


no


no




Zip Formats 
      Supported


Dart


InnerMedia


Chilkat


Xceed


Polar




WinZip / PKZip Format 
      Supported


yes


yes


yes


yes


yes




BZip2 Compression


no


no


no


yes


no




GZip and Tar 
formats


no


no*


no


no


no




APIs


Dart


InnerMedia


Chilkat


Xceed


Polar




Unicode support


no


yes


no


yes


no




Dynamic instantiation (don't 
      have to put it on a form)


yes


yes


yes


yes


yes




ActiveX Interface


yes


yes


yes


yes


yes




Direct DLL API 
    access


no


yes


no


yes


yes




.NET Native 
    available


no


yes


no


yes*


no




Wrapper classes for C++ 
      available


yes


no


yes


no


no




C++ static lib 
      available


no


yes


no


yes*


no




Documentation, Support, 
      Evals, Free Versions


Dart


InnerMedia


Chilkat


Xceed


Polar




All documentation 
      online


no


no


yes


no


no




Offline documentation (Word, 
      .hlp, other)


yes


yes


no


yes


yes




Full Evaluation 
      Available


yes


yes


yes


yes


yes




Free "Lite" version 
      available


no


no


yes


no


no




Source Included


no


no


no


no


no




Royalty-free


yes


yes


yes


yes


yes




User-Groups (online support 
      forum)


yes


no


yes


no


yes




Interoperates with other 
      components in the vendor's product li
ne.


yes


no


yes


no


no




Phone Support


yes


yes


yes


yes


no


(1) No files are involved in the 
memory-to-memory zip or unzip.


(2) The ability to compress a file and 
provide access to the compressed data in memory.


(3) The ability to open a Zip and access 
the compressed data in memory without Zipping or Unzipping.


(4) The ability to take an entire Zip file 
image already in memory and work with it.


(5) 
This is important: 
Does the 
memory consumption continually grow when Zipping larger and larger files? 



(6) Also includes accessing a Zip embedded 
within the caller's own EXE.


Other Notes




Abale Zip was not included because this 
  is Xceed Zip under another brand name. 


Xceed's .NET and static C++ library 
  versions are available as separate products, and not included all together in 
  one package.


Inner Media's GZip and Tar support is 
  included in a separate product from DynaZip MAX.


Xceed's self-extracting EXE features are 
  purchased separately.
 



> Feature Comparison of Popular Zip Compression Components
You forgot to mention these great products, free of charge:
http://vbaccelerator.com/codelib/zip/zipvb.htm
http://www.vbdiamond.com/Sources/DownloadFile.asp?ID=1047
http://www.gzip.org/zlib/zlib114.zip
No commercial spam here, please.
Bye
*Bob*


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