Slim Archiver · v1.0.0 · Windows 10 / 11

High-ratio compression.
Encryption you can verify.

Slim Archiver packs directories smaller with a zstd + LZMA engine, protects them with authenticated XChaCha20-Poly1305 keyed by Argon2id, and gives IT the controls to roll it out — SSO, GPO policy, DLP and audit logging.

Download for WindowsSee pricing

Windows 10 / 11 · 64-bit · silent per-machine installer

XChaCha20-Poly1305Argon2id KDF Entra ID SSOGPO policyDLPAmazon S3Audit log
What it does

The whole engine, nothing paywalled.

Compression, encryption, deduplication and multi-format extraction are all in the free tier. Paid tiers add packaging and enterprise governance — never the core.

High-ratio compression

A zstd + LZMA pipeline with solid archives and BCJ/delta filters. Every method -m1–-m6 is included free — nothing about the engine is paywalled.

Authenticated encryption

XChaCha20-Poly1305 keyed by Argon2id, with block headers bound as AAD so tampering is detected on extraction. Optional encrypted filenames.

Global deduplication

Content-defined chunking finds data that repeats across files and stores it once — large wins on backups, versioned trees and VM images.

Reads what you have

Extracts .slim, .zip, .rar, .tar, .gz and .tgz — one tool for the archives you already own.

Parallel by design

Multi-threaded compression and extraction. On an 8-core / 16-thread laptop it compresses ~1.5–2× faster than 7-Zip and extracts many-file archives 3–4× faster.

Enterprise controls

SSO with Entra ID, GPO policy, DLP, Amazon S3, Smart-Card / CAC, audit logging, password-vault integration and Outlook “Zip & Send.”

Benchmarks — measured on public corpora

Measured, not marketed.

Every number is from a real run you can reproduce — no illustrative estimates. Where 7-Zip or WinRAR still wins, we show it.

37% smaller

On versioned / redundant data

Two Linux kernel versions in one archive: 155 MB vs 7-Zip’s 248 MB — and extracted 3.7× faster.

3–4× faster

Extraction on many files

The kernel and real-world sets extract in ~18–21s where 7-Zip takes ~71–79s. Compression runs ~1.5–2× faster too.

~13% behind

Ratio on diverse source

On unrelated source trees, 7-Zip’s solid mode still compresses ~13% smaller (171 vs 194 MB). Shown because a benchmark you can’t trust is worthless.

ToolArchiveSavedCompressExtract
Silesia Corpus (202 MB, mixed)
Slim -m355.1 MB72.8%4.0s0.2s
Slim -m646.6 MB77.0%17.8s1.5s
WinRAR -m550.7 MB74.9%3.5s0.4s
7-Zip -mx946.4 MB77.0%34.2s1.1s
ZIP -mx961.7 MB69.5%23.8s0.7s
enwik9 (954 MB, text)
Slim -m3247.3 MB74.1%14.2s1.2s
Slim -m6211.1 MB77.9%57.2s6.7s
WinRAR -m5221.7 MB76.8%27.1s2.0s
7-Zip -mx9200.8 MB78.9%154.5s2.1s
ZIP -mx9296.3 MB68.9%353.7s3.5s
real-world (1833 MB, mixed source)
Slim -m3230.9 MB87.4%13.6s17.7s
Slim -m6194 MB89.4%67.3s18.2s
WinRAR -m5214.1 MB88.3%70.4s55.6s
7-Zip -mx9171.2 MB90.7%97.5s70.9s
ZIP -mx9367.9 MB79.9%97.3s78.0s
Kernels (2523 MB, 2 versions · dedup)
Slim -m3183.8 MB92.7%12.9s21.7s
Slim -m6154.8 MB93.9%70.7s21.4s
WinRAR -m5175 MB93.1%78.7s71.3s
7-Zip -mx9247.8 MB90.2%128.5s78.8s
ZIP -mx9498.6 MB80.2%138.8s86.6s
Cyan = best in that column for the corpus (whichever tool wins). Lower is better for size and time; higher for % saved. Archive size (MB) is the ground truth.

Measured on a Lenovo Legion 5 Pro — AMD Ryzen 7 8745HX (8C/16T), 32 GB DDR5-5200, NVMe SSD, Windows 11 Pro. Median of 3 runs · Defender real-time scan off · AC power.

Command line

Scriptable, everywhere.

The same engine as the app, from the terminal — ideal for backups, CI and servers.

slimarch — common commands
create$ slimarch c out.slim ./dir -m6
encrypt$ slimarch c out.slim ./dir -m6 -p<pass>
encrypt+names$ slimarch c out.slim ./dir -p<pass> -en
extract$ slimarch x out.slim -o"./restore"
list / test$ slimarch l out.slim  |  slimarch t out.slim
self-extract$ slimarch c out.slim ./dir -sfx # Pro
split$ slimarch c out.slim ./dir -v700m # Pro
Pricing

Free where it counts.

The compression and encryption engine is free forever. Pay only for packaging and enterprise governance.

Free
$0
  • All compression methods -m1–-m6
  • Solid archives, BCJ/delta filters
  • Global deduplication
  • XChaCha20-Poly1305 encryption
  • Extract .slim / .zip / .rar / .tar / .gz / .tgz
  • Desktop app & command line
Download
Pro
$25 $20 / one-time
  • Everything in Free
  • Self-extracting (SFX) archives
  • Multi-volume / split archives
  • Perpetual license — all v1.x updates included
Buy Pro
Enterprise
Custom
  • Everything in Pro
  • SSO (Entra ID) & GPO policy
  • DLP & audit logging
  • Amazon S3 & Smart-Card / CAC
  • Password vaults & Outlook Zip & Send
Contact sales

Introductory launch price: $20 (regularly $25) for the first 3 months, through [[ INTRO END DATE — launch + 3 months ]]. Pro is a perpetual license covering all v1.x updates; v2.0 is a separate paid upgrade — but buy within the 90 days before v2.0 ships and you're upgraded to it free.