http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Lossless_comparison#External_links
Comparison Table
Features | FLAC | WavPack | TAK | Monkey's | OptimFROG | ALAC | WMA |
Encoding speed | fast | very fast | very fast | fast | slow | average | average |
Decoding speed | very fast | very fast | very fast | average | average | fast | average |
Compression* | 58.70% | 58.0% | 57.0% | 55.50% | 54.70% | 58.50% | 56.30% |
Flexibility** | very good | very good | very good | very good | very good | bad | bad |
Error handling | yes | yes | yes | no | yes | yes | |
Seeking | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes |
Tagging | Vorbis tags | ID3/APE | APEv2 (exp.) | ID3/APE | ID3/APE | Quicktime | ASF |
Hardware support | very good | limited | no | limited | no | good | limited |
Software support | very good | good | average | good | average | bad | good |
Hybrid/lossy | no | yes | no | no | yes | no | no |
Replay Gain | yes | yes | yes | no | yes | sort of | no |
RIFF chunks | yes | yes | yes | yes | no | ||
Streaming | yes | yes | yes | no | yes | yes | yes |
Pipe support | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | no | yes |
Open source | yes | yes | no | yes | no | yes (decoding) | no |
Multichannel | yes | yes | no | no | no | yes | yes |
High resolution | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes | yes |
OS support | All | All | Win/Linux Wine | All | Win/Mac/Linux | Win/Mac | Win/Mac |
(table continued below)
Features | Shorten | LA | TTA | LPAC | MPEG-4 ALS | MPEG-4 SLS | Real Lossless |
Encoding speed | very fast | slow | very fast | average | average | slow | slow |
Decoding speed | very fast | slow | fast | fast | fast | slow | fast |
Compression* | 63.50% | 53.50% | 57.10% | 57.20% | 57.10% | ? | 57.0% |
Flexibility** | bad | average | bad | bad | very good | bad | bad |
Error handling | no | no | yes | no | yes | yes | |
Seeking | yes | yes | yes | slow | yes | yes | yes |
Tagging | no | ID3v1 | ID3 | no | yes | yes | Proprietary |
Hardware support | limited | no | limited | no | no | no | no |
Software support | very good | bad | average | average | bad | bad | bad |
Hybrid/lossy | no | no | no | no | no | yes | no |
Replay Gain | no | no | yes | no | yes | yes | no |
RIFF chunks | yes | yes | no | yes | |||
Streaming | no | no | no | yes | yes | yes | |
Pipe support | yes | yes | no | no | |||
Open source | yes | no | yes | no | yes | yes | no |
Multichannel | no | no | yes | no | yes | yes | no |
High resolution | no | no | yes | yes | yes | yes | no |
OS support | All | Win/Linux | All | Win/Linux/Sol | All | All | Win/Mac/Linux |
* The Compression ratio is calculated with the division of compressed size by uncompressed size * 100. So, lower is better.
Encoding speed, Decoding speed and Compression ratio are based on each encoder's default settings.
** Flexibility refers to the amount of encoding choices offered to the users (Fast/low compression, Slow/high compression and everything inbetween)