Lzip is a lossless data compressor based on the LZMA (Lempel-Ziv-Markov chain-Algorithm) algorithm designed by Igor Pavlov. Lzip decompresses almost as fast as gzip and compresses better than bzip2, but requires more memory and time during compression. These features make lzip well suited for software distribution and data archival. Lzip has a user interface similar to the one of gzip or bzip2.