Lossless comparison

The lossless comparison page aims to gather information about lossless codecs available so users can make an informed decision as to what lossless codec to choose for their needs.

Introduction

Given the enormous amount of lossless audio compressor choices available, it is a very difficult task to choose the one most suited for each person's needs. Some people only take into consideration compression performance when choosing a codec, but as the following table and article shows, there are several other features worth taking into consideration when making a choice.

For example, users wanting good multiplatform compatibility and robustness (e.g., people sharing live recordings) would favour WavPack or FLAC. Another user, looking for the very highest compression available, would go with OptimFROG. Someone wanting portable support would use FLAC or ALAC, and so on. En fin, this is not a matter worth getting too worked up about. If you later find out the codec you chose isn't the best for your needs, you can just transcompress to another format, without risk of losing quality.

Note: for latest comparison of lossless compression, scroll down to the Links section of this page.

Comparison Table

Features	FLAC	ALAC	WavPack	TAK	Monkey's	WMA	OptimFROG	TTA
Encoding speed	very fast	fast	very fast	very fast	fast	fast	slow	very fast
Decoding speed	very fast	fast	fast	very fast	slow	average	very slow	fast
Compression	57.0%	57.8%	57.1%	56.0%	55.1%	58.4%	54.6%	56.6%
# presets	9	2	> 10	> 10	5	1	> 10	1
Error handling	yes	no	yes	yes	with FFmpeg	yes	yes	yes
Tagging	Vorbis tags	iTunes	ID3/APEv2	APEv2	APEv2	ASF	ID3/APEv2	ID3/APEv2
Hardware support	very good	good	limited	no	limited	limited	no	limited
Software support	very good	good	good	average	good	good	average	good
Hybrid/lossy	LossyWAV	no	yes	LossyWAV	no	LossyWAV	yes	no
ReplayGain	yes	propriet.	yes	yes	no	no	yes	yes
RIFF chunks	yes	?	yes	?	yes	no	yes	no
Streaming	yes	yes	yes	yes	no	yes	yes	yes
Open source	yes	yes	yes	no	yes	no	no	yes
Multichannel	yes	yes	yes	yes	no	yes	no	yes
OS support	All	All	All	Win/Wine	All	Win/Mac	Win/Mac/Linux	All

A Speed and Compression are based on each encoder's default settings and are taken from the this comparison.

B The Compression ratio is compressed size/uncompressed size * 100. So, lower is better.

C Error handling means that a codec can detect a corruption (flipped bit) in a file and warn the user about it, but still decode the rest of the file.

D The official Monkey's Audio do not support decoding through errors, but FFmpeg does Codecs These are the most popular lossless codecs, in alphabetical order: Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC) http://www.apple.com/itunes/import.html ALAC is a codec developed by Apple for usage in iPod and AirPort Express. ALAC pros Open source (encoding and decoding via FFmpeg and CUETools, decoding only via a standalone decoder) Fast encoding Fast decoding Hardware support (iPod, AirPort Express) Software support (iTunes, Quicktime) Independent encoder implementation available: ffmpeg Streaming support Tagging support (QT tags) Supports multichannel audio and high resolutions Used by a few online stores ALAC cons Limited software support No error detection/robustness No hybrid/lossy mode (and not LossyWAV compatible) Not very efficient ALAC Other features Fits in the MP4 container Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC) https://xiph.org/flac/ FLAC is a lossless codec developed by Josh Coalson. It's part of the Xiph multimedia portfolio, along with Ogg, Vorbis, Speex and Theora. FLAC pros Open source Very fast decoding Very fast encoding Very good hardware support (Android, Marantz, Sonos, many others) Very good software support Independent encoder implementations available: flake/ffmpeg, FLACCL Error robustness Streaming support Supports multichannel audio and high resolutions Tagging support (FLAC tags) Supports RIFF chunks Pipe support ReplayGain compatible Used by a few online stores FLAC cons No hybrid/lossy mode (but is LossyWAV compatible) FLAC Other features Supports embedded CUE sheets (with limitations) Includes MD5 hashes for quick integrity checking as standard Fits the Ogg, AVI and Matroska containers Monkey's Audio (APE) http://www.monkeysaudio.com/ Monkey's Audio is a very efficient lossless compressor developed by Matt Ashland. APE pros High compression Fast encoding Good software support Simple and user friendly. Official GUI provided. Java version (multiplatform) Tagging support (ID3v1, APE tags) High resolution audio support Supports RIFF chunks (only in the GUI encoder) Pipe support (only in a special version) APE cons Problematic license (source provided, no modification or redistribution rights) Slow decoding No multichannel support No error robustness No hybrid/lossy mode (and not LossyWAV compatible) Limited hardware support (Rockbox, some Cowon players); poor battery life due to complicated decoding (see MP3 player benchmarks) Higher compression levels are extremely CPU intensive Doesn't support ReplayGain APE Other features Includes MD5 hashes for quick integrity checking Supports APL image link files (similar to CUE sheets) OptimFROG (OFR) http://www.losslessaudio.org/ OptimFROG is a lossless format developed by Florin Ghido to become the champion in audio compression. OFR pros Very high compression Good software support Error robustness Streaming support Supports high resolutions Hybrid/lossy mode Tagging support (ID3, APE tags) Supports RIFF chunks ReplayGain compatible OFR cons Closed source No multichannel audio support No hardware support Very slow decoding Slow encoding No updates since 2011 (last non-Windows release in 2006) More than one tagging method allowed (ambiguity possible) OFR Other features Supports 32bit float streams Includes MD5 hashes for quick integrity checking Tom's verlustfreier Audiokompressor (TAK) http://www.thbeck.de/Tak/Tak.html TAK is a lossless codec developed by TBeck. TAK pros Very fast decoding Very fast encoding Very high efficiency Error robust Supports multichannel audio and high resolutions Tagging support ReplayGain compatible Supports RIFF chunks Pipe support Streamable TAK cons Closed source No hybrid/lossy mode (but is LossyWAV compatible) No hardware support Average software support Doesn't support Unicode (yet) TAK Other features Optional MD5 checksum WavPack (WV) http://www.wavpack.com/ WavPack is a fast and featureful lossless codec developed by David Bryant. WV pros Open source Fast decoding Very fast encoding Good efficiency Error robustness Streaming support Supports multichannel audio and high resolutions Hybrid/lossy mode Tagging support (ID3v1, APE tags) Supports RIFF chunks Ability to create self extracting files for Win32 platform Pipe support Good software support ReplayGain compatible WV cons Limited hardware player support (RockBox) More than one tagging method allowed (ambiguity possible) WV Other features Supports 32bit float streams Supports embedded CUE sheets Includes MD5 hashes for quick integrity checking Can encode in both symmetrical and asymmetrical modes. Fits the Matroska container True Audio (TTA) http://www.true-audio.com/ TTA is a lossless codec developed by a international team of programmers. TTA pros Open source Supports multichannel audio and high resolutions Tagging support (ID3, APE tags) Embedded CUE sheets support ReplayGain compatible Error robustness Pipe support Average compression Fast encoding/decoding Symmetric algorithm Password protection Ultra low latency TTA cons No hybrid/lossy mode Doesn't support RIFF chunks Limited hardware support TTA Other features Fits the Matroska container Password protection Windows Media Audio Lossless (WMAL) http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/9series/codecs/audio.aspx WMA Lossless is the lossless codec developed by Microsoft to be featured in their Windows Media codec portfolio. WMAL pros Streaming support Very good software support Hardware support (Microsoft Zune, Gigabeat V and S line from Toshiba) Supports multichannel audio and high resolutions. Tagging support (proprietary) Pipe support WMAL cons Rather low efficiency Closed source No hybrid/lossy mode (but is LossyWAV compatible) Doesn't support RIFF chunks Doesn't support ReplayGain WMAL Other features Fits the ASF container Other Formats Aside from the formats mentioned above, there are in fact quite a lot of other lossless formats. To keep the table and list brief and readable, a few formats have not been mentioned. DTS-HD Master Audio Similar to the MPEG-4 SLS format, this format has a core track in an older, more widely supported format, DTS. This core lossy track is made lossless by a secondary track with correction data. It is an optional codec in Blu-ray implementations. Its main use is surround sound encoding, and as is the case with MLP, the price of the encoder ensures it is only used in mastering of Blu-ray discs. LA LA features an extremely high compression (on par with OptimFrog highest modes, but a bit faster), but it hasn't been updated for more than 10 years. Furthermore, backward compatibility is not guaranteed, so using it for archiving might pose a few problems. It isn't able to cope with file corruption either, software support is very limited and isn't open source. MLP/Dolby TrueHD The MLP codec (of which the mathematical basis was used in Dolby TrueHD) it the codec used for DVD-Audio. It was mandatory in any HD-DVD implementation and optional for Blu-Ray in it's Dolby TrueHD form. It is known to support the 'wasted bits' scheme used in LossyWAV. As encoders are very expensive, its use outside DVD/Blu-ray mastering environments is non-existent. Its main use is encoding surround sound data. MPEG-4 ALS MPEG-4 ALS is the successor to LPAC, which it was based on. It has been as a ISO standard and there is a reference encoder/decoder, but like TTA, it does not have features that make it stand out from other codecs, nor backing by a large organisation, so it hasn't much software and no hardware support. MPEG-4 SLS MPEG-4 SLS is a special codec, having a AAC core track and a 'correction track'. Also known as HD-AAC, SLS stands for Scalable to Lossless. However, there is to date still no affordable software to play, encode or decode (the lossless part of) SLS files. Shorten Shorten was one of the first widely-used lossless formats, and it still occasionally found on the internet, especially in archives, for example etree.org. It is quite fast in both encoding and decoding, but doesn't compress very much. Furthermore, seeking has a troubled past as well as tagging. It is considered obsolete. Real Lossless Part of the Real codec suite, Real Lossless too hasn't any very special features that make it stand out. Just like WMA Lossless and Apple Lossless, it was created to fit in a codec suite, but unlike WMA Lossless and Apple Lossless, there is no hardware support and software support is limited. Compression is on par with most other codecs, but it is rather slow to encode. Oddball formats There are a few archaic formats of which encoders and decoders are hard to get by. Most of those would have disappeared by now, but some of them are being preserved for posterity at rjamorim's Advanced Digital Audio (ADA) Bonk Marian's a-Pac AudioZip Dakx WAV Entis Lab MIO LiteWave LPAC Pegasus SPS RK Audio (RKAU) Ogg Squish Sonarc VocPack WavArc WaveZip/MUSICompress See also Lossless External links Other lossless compressions comparisons Sorted based on last update date. Martijn van Beurden's comparison - tries to compare all codecs and settings with a balanced pool of music (last updated 2015-01-05) Squeezechart audio - tests as much codecs as possible, but not all their settings and with a limited test corpus (last updated 2013-10-31) Synthetic Soul's comparison (last update 2007-07-28) Johan De Bock's speed oriented comparison - best choices speedwise are indicated in green, mostly electronic music (last updated 2006-07-22) Hans Heijden's -- used as reference to build the table (last updated 2006-07-07) Josef Pohm's comparison, hosted by Synthetic Soul (last update 2006-05-29) Bobulous' lossless audio comparison — a look at six lossless formats in terms of speed and file size (last updated 2006-05-22) Jhan De Bock's size oriented comparison - aimed only at the maximum compression setting for each codec (based on a somewhat limited set of samples, however) (last updated 2006-05-19) Gruboolez' -- comparing only classical music (last updated 2005-02-27) Speek's (last updated 2005-02-07) More on lossless compressions The Lossless Audio Blog, retrieved from archive.org - by windmiller, is a reliable and complete source of news about lossless compression. Go to the Hydrogenaudio thread to discuss this article. References