In the world of data compression, two names stand out: 7zip and LZ4. The former is a veteran in the field, renowned for its high compression ratios and versatility. The latter, on the other hand, is a relative newcomer that has been gaining traction for its blazing-fast compression and decompression speeds. Recently, a modded version of 7zip has emerged, incorporating the LZ4 algorithm into its repertoire. This development has sparked excitement among data enthusiasts and professionals alike, and for good reason.

At its core, a "modded" or "forked" version of 7-Zip is a customized build of the open-source software maintained by independent developers. While the original application focuses heavily on the LZMA/LZMA2 algorithms to achieve high compression ratios, modded versions integrate entirely new codecs—often as plugins—to solve specific performance problems.

Standard 7-Zip is slow. Compressing a 10GB virtual machine image or a folder of high-resolution textures using LZMA can take minutes.

In direct comparison to the standard 7z format using LZMA2, LZ4 processes data in a fraction of the time. For a 100MB file, LZ4 can complete operations in , whereas 7z medium compression takes nearly 6 seconds. This speed gap makes LZ4 indispensable for applications where compression cannot become a processing bottleneck.