WinRAR alternatives

WinRAR alternatives for Windows 11

Six ways to replace WinRAR on Windows 11, free and paid: what each one is, what it costs, and who it suits. One of them is ours, and we say which.

Why people look for a WinRAR alternative

WinRAR, by win.rar GmbH and RARLAB, is "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. A single licence covers one computer for business use; home users may use it on all the computers they own. Prices are set by region in RARLAB's shop.

Meanwhile Windows itself has caught up a little. 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. Explorer does not handle encrypted archives, though, and on Windows 10 it opens ZIP but not RAR.

Quick picks

• Free, and creates as well as extracts: 7-Zip.
• Free, and fitted to Windows 11's right-click menu: NanaZip.
• Free, over 200 formats, and on Linux and macOS too: PeaZip.
• A free edition, with paid editions for extras: Bandizip.
• 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.

One thing none of them does on its own is create RAR archives. RAR creation is RARLAB's: the unRAR licence other tools use to open RAR forbids using that code to make it. If you send RAR files to other people, keep WinRAR.

7-Zip

Free and open source, mostly under the GNU LGPL; the current version is 26.05, released 21 October 2026. It packs and unpacks 7z, ZIP, TAR, GZIP, BZIP2, XZ and WIM, unpacks RAR, ISO, CAB, DMG and many more, encrypts 7z and ZIP with AES-256, and has right-click integration and a command line. It cannot create RAR. For anyone who wants the most archive software for no money, this is the default answer. EasyUnZip ships 7-Zip's engine inside it, and EasyUnZip vs 7-Zip sets out what that means. If 7-Zip is what you already use and want to move on from, 7-Zip alternatives for Windows 11 covers that.

NanaZip

A free, open-source fork of 7-Zip by M2-Team, "intended for the modern Windows experience". It creates and extracts archives, adds codecs such as Zstandard, Brotli and LZ4, sits in Windows 11's modern right-click menu, and has dark mode and Mica. It installs from the Microsoft Store and needs Windows 10 version 2004 or later, on x64 or ARM64. The current release is 7.0, from 26 October 2026. Suits anyone who wants 7-Zip's abilities in a window that looks 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 supports over 200 archive formats, offers strong encryption with optional 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 the widest format coverage, or one 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.

Windows File Explorer

Already installed. Right-click an archive, choose Extract All and follow the wizard, or open the archive and drag files out. Updated Windows 11 reads ZIP, RAR, 7z and TAR this way. 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 rely on it, 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. It lives in the tray; select archives in File Explorer, 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 uses the official 7-Zip engine, 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. The EasyUnZip vs WinRAR comparison goes through it row by row.

How to switch

1. Install the alternative you have chosen.
2. Open Settings > Apps > Default apps, type .zip or .rar into the file type search, and pick the new app for each.
3. Uninstall WinRAR once you are sure you no longer need to create RAR archives.

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. It works from its hotkey alongside whatever owns your archives, WinRAR included.

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.