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 number 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 take into consideration only 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	WMAL	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	yes	yes	yes	yes
Tagging	Vorbis tags	iTunes	ID3/APEv2	APEv2	APEv2	ASF	ID3/APEv2	ID3v1/2 or 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
RIFF chunks	yes	no	yes	yes	yes	no	yes	no
Streaming	yes	yes	yes	yes	no	yes	yes	yes
Open source	yes	yes	yes	no	no	no	no	yes
Multichannel	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	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 taken from 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 it will still decode the rest of the file.

D The official Monkey's Audio decoder does not support decoding through errors, but this may be achieved with FFmpeg or Winamp, though likely not, when the "Insane" preset is used.

E Since version 4.86

F Unofficial (but properly working) open source decoder is available as part of ffmpeg Codecs These are the most popular lossless codecs, in alphabetical order: Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC) https://alac.macosforge.org/trac ALAC is a codec developed by Apple and used across their hardware and software platforms. 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. Limited to 8 channels. Only limited set of channels layouts is supported - https://github.com/nu774/qaac/wiki/Multichannel--handling Supports 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) 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 Opus, 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 (which is insanely fast, and can beat any other CPU based encoder) Error robustness Streaming support Supports multichannel. Limited to 8 channels. Channel mask in WAVEFORMATEXTENSIBLE is supported but support is not included in official specification. With reference encoder undocumented option --channel-map=none is needed to encode some non-standard layouts (e.g. 4.1; FL,FR,FC,BC), but no special options are needed with ffmpeg's encoder. Supports high resolutions Tagging support (FLAC tags) Supports RIFF chunks Pipe support Used by a few online stores FLAC cons No hybrid/lossy mode (but is LossyWAV compatible) Does not handle 32-bit float and there is no encoder that can render to 32-bit integer FLAC Other features Supports embedded CUE sheets (with limitations) Includes MD5 hashes for quick integrity checking as standard Fits the Ogg, Matroska and MP4 (experimental) containers Monkey's Audio (APE) https://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 Supports multichannel (since version 4.86). Limited to 8 channels. Channel mask in WAVEFORMATEXTENSIBLE is supported Supports high resolutions Simple and user friendly. Official GUI provided. Java version (multiplatform) Error robustness/decoding up to -c3000 (High compression) Tagging support (ID3v1, APE tags) Supports RIFF chunks (only in the GUI encoder) Pipe support (only in a special version) APE cons Problematic license (Source available, but with no modification or redistribution rights. Encourages violating the GNU GPL license of other programs.) Slow decoding 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 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 OFR cons Closed source No multichannel audio support No hardware support Very slow decoding Slow encoding 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 Thomas Becker. TAK pros Very fast decoding Very fast encoding Very high efficiency Error robust Supports multichannel. Limited to 6 channels. Channel mask in WAVEFORMATEXTENSIBLE is supported Supports high resolutions Tagging support Supports RIFF chunks Pipe support Streamable TAK cons Closed source (but unofficial open source decoder is available as part of ffmpeg) 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 True Audio (TTA) http://tta.tausoft.org/ TTA is a lossless codec developed by a international team of programmers. TTA pros Open source Supports multichannel. Reference encoder/decoder is limited to 6 channels. ffmpeg's encoder/decoder is limited to 16 channels. Channel mask in WAVEFORMATEXTENSIBLE is not supported Supports high resolutions Tagging support (ID3v1, ID3v2 or APEv2) Embedded CUE sheets support Error robustness Pipe support Average compression Fast encoding/decoding Symmetric algorithm 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 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. Limited to 255 channels. Channel mask in WAVEFORMATEXTENSIBLE is supported Supports 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 Works with Android (Through third party software, such as VLC.) Independent encoder implementation available. (FFmpeg WavPack) WV cons Limited hardware player support (RockBox) More than one tagging method allowed (Ambiguity possible, but unlikely as APEv2 tags have been the preferred method for quite some time.) WV Other features Can compress the Direct-Stream Digital (DSD) audio recording format Supports 32bit float streams Supports embedded CUE sheets Accept audio files bigger than 4GB Includes MD5 hashes for quick integrity checking Can encode in both symmetrical and asymmetrical modes. Fits the Matroska container Windows Media Audio Lossless (WMAL) https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff819508(v=vs.85).aspx WMA Lossless is the lossless codec developed by Microsoft to be featured in their Windows Media codec portfolio. WMAL pros Streaming support Supports multichannel audio and high resolutions. Tagging support (proprietary) Pipe support WMAL cons Limited hardware support (Microsoft Zune, Toshiba Gigabeat S and V. Both discontinued and obsolete. Rockbox, for 16-bit stereo files only.) Limited software support outside of the Microsoft Windows operating system. Extremely low efficiency Closed source No hybrid/lossy mode (but is LossyWAV compatible) Doesn't support RIFF chunks 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 http://www.lossless-audio.com/ 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) is the codec used for DVD-Audio. It was mandatory in any HD-DVD implementation and optional for Blu-Ray in its 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 http://www.etree.org/shncom.html 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 come 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 AudioZip Dakx WAV Entis Lab MIO LiteWave LPAC Marian's a-Pac mp3HD (MPEG-1 Audio Layer III HD) Pegasus SPS RK Audio (RKAU) Ogg Squish/Tarkin 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) Lossless Compression of Audio Much information about oddball formats including comparison of them. (last updated 2005-10-21) 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