7-Zip alternatives

7-Zip alternatives for Windows 11

Six things to use instead of, or beside, 7-Zip on Windows 11: what each one is, what it costs, and who it suits. One of them is ours, and we say which.

Start with what 7-Zip already does

7-Zip is free and open source, mostly under the GNU LGPL, with some parts under the BSD 3-clause licence and the unRAR restriction. The current version is 26.05, released 21 October 2026. It packs and unpacks 7z, XZ, BZIP2, GZIP, TAR, ZIP and WIM, unpacks RAR, ISO, CAB, DMG, MSI, VHD and more, encrypts 7z and ZIP with AES-256, and comes with Windows shell integration, a file manager and a command line. It runs on Windows 11, 10, 8, 7 and older, with x64, x86 and ARM64 builds. The one thing it cannot do is create RAR.

So most people looking for an alternative are not looking for more capability. They want a window that fits Windows 11, more formats, something simpler, or only the extracting part. The picks below are sorted by those reasons. If you are weighing 7-Zip against us directly, EasyUnZip vs 7-Zip goes through it row by row.

Quick picks

• 7-Zip, fitted to Windows 11's right-click menu: NanaZip, free.
• More formats, and on Linux and macOS too: PeaZip, free.
• A free edition, with paid editions for extras: Bandizip.
• You need to create RAR archives: WinRAR, paid after a trial.
• Nothing to install: File Explorer, for unencrypted archives on updated Windows 11.
• Extract-only, from a hotkey, several archives at once: EasyUnZip, $9.99 once. Ours.

NanaZip

By M2-Team, and in its own words "an open source file archiver intended for the modern Windows experience", forked from 7-Zip's source code. The current release is 7.0 (7.0.1882.0), from 26 October 2026, and it inherits features from 7-Zip 26.05, 7-Zip ZS and 7-Zip NSIS. It creates and extracts archives, sits in the File Explorer context menu on Windows 10 and 11, has dark mode and Mica, and adds a Smart Extraction feature and an option to open the folder after extraction. It is packaged as MSIX, installs from the Microsoft Store, and offers a 7-Zip execution alias. It needs Windows 10 version 2004 or later, on x64 or ARM64. Suits anyone who likes 7-Zip and wants it to look like Windows 11. There is a closer look in EasyUnZip vs NanaZip.

PeaZip

Free and open source under the LGPLv3, at version 11.4.0, and available for Linux and macOS as well as Windows. It is built on 7-Zip and p7zip, Zstandard, Brotli and other open-source components, and supports over 200 archive formats. It offers two-factor protection (a password plus a keyfile), can export what you do in its interface as a command-line script, and comes in a portable version. Suits people who want over 200 formats in one tool, or the same tool across operating systems.

Bandizip

By Bandisoft, at version 7.47 (13 October 2026). Bandisoft describe it as "available for free, and the paid editions offer a variety of advanced features". It compresses into more than ten formats, including ZIP, 7Z, EXE and ISO, decompresses more than forty, RAR and RAR5 among them, and works from the right-click menu. The Professional edition adds a password manager, archive repair, password recovery, image preview and an antimalware scan. Suits people who want a polished archiver and may pay for extras.

WinRAR

By win.rar GmbH and RARLAB, and "try before you buy": its licence allows a test period of at most 40 days, after which a licence must be purchased, and the trial can display a registration reminder dialog. It creates RAR and ZIP archives, and RAR creation is RARLAB's alone: only their own tools make RAR. Prices are set by region in RARLAB's shop. Suits people who send RAR files to others, which is the one job 7-Zip cannot do. If you are moving the other way, the WinRAR alternatives for Windows 11 page covers it.

Windows File Explorer

Already installed. Right-click an archive, choose Extract All and follow the wizard, or open the archive and drag files out. Microsoft lists ZIP, RAR, 7z and TAR support in File Explorer on Windows 11 version 24H2, and added it to 22H2 and 23H2 in update KB5031455. It does not support encrypted archives, and Microsoft suggest a separate app for those. Suits anyone who opens the odd unencrypted archive and wants nothing more. The wizard has limits worth knowing before you remove 7-Zip, and Windows Extract All vs EasyUnZip lists them.

EasyUnZip (ours)

An extractor for ZIP and RAR on Windows 10 and 11, and nothing else: it does not create, compress or repair archives, and it opens no other formats, so a selected .7z file is left alone. It ships the official 7-Zip engine and drives it, which means the decompression is 7-Zip's. What it changes is the way in: it lives in the tray, you select archives in File Explorer and press Alt+E, and a panel asks where they go, which file types you want and what to do on a name collision, once for the whole job. It handles passwords and costs $9.99 once, for up to 3 PCs, after a 14-day trial. Suits people who receive archives far more often than they make them, and who are happy to keep 7-Zip for the rest.

How to switch

1. Install the alternative you have chosen.
2. Open Settings > Apps > Default apps, type .zip or .7z into the file type search, and pick the new app for each.
3. Uninstall 7-Zip once nothing you use depends on it, such as a script that calls 7z.

Microsoft's own steps are in Change default programs in Windows. EasyUnZip is the exception: it takes over no file associations and adds no right-click entry, so there is nothing to set and no reason to uninstall 7-Zip. It works from its hotkey alongside whatever owns your archives.

If EasyUnZip is the one

Start the 14-day trial, with no card and no account: get EasyUnZip from the Microsoft Store, or run winget install 9P98XXWQ56S4 -s msstore in a terminal.