Comparison

MacPacker vs BetterZip

Which archive, package and disk-image formats each app can open on macOS, and which ones it can create.

10 August 202646 formats · 9 capabilities

The apps

MacPacker

0.19.0

Price: Free
Licence: GPL-3.0, open source
Needs: macOS 14.6+
Shape: Archive browser

39read

1write

BetterZip

6.0.4 · 2026

Price: $35 one-time
Licence: Proprietary
Needs: macOS 13.5+
Shape: Archive manager

34read

15write

The read and write totals count the rows of the table below, where one row can stand for a family of formats. Every app counts its own formats differently, so the totals are for orientation and the table is the comparison.

Format matrix

Read means the app can list an archive's contents and extract from it. Write means the app can produce that format — creating it, and where noted updating it. Formats neither app handles are left out.

Format	MacPacker		BetterZip
Format	Read	Write	Read	Write
Everyday archives	MacPacker		BetterZip
ZIP.zip .jar .war .apk .ipa .appx .xpi .epub .cbz	Yes¹	Yes²	Yes	Yes²
ZIPX.zipx	Yes	No	Yes³	No
7z.7z	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
RAR / RAR5.rar .cbr .r00	Yes	No	Yes	Partial⁴
TAR.tar	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
ARJ.arj	Yes	No	Yes	No
LHA / LZH.lha .lzh	Yes	No	Yes	No
CAB.cab	Yes	No	Yes	No
CHM.chm	Yes	No	Yes	No
CPIO.cpio .cpgz	Yes	No	Yes	No
Platform & package formats	MacPacker		BetterZip
AR.ar .a .lib	Yes	No	No	No
Debian package.deb	Yes	No	Yes	No
RPM package.rpm	Yes	No	Yes	No
XAR.xar	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Apple installer package.pkg	Yes	No	Yes³	No
Apple signed archive.xip	Yes⁵	No	Yes³	No
MSI / OLE compound.msi .doc .xls	Yes	No	No	No
Self-extracting EXE / NSIS.exe .nsis	Yes	No	Partial	No
Windows imaging.wim .swm .esd	Yes	No	Yes	No
Legacy, Mac-classic and long tail	MacPacker		BetterZip
StuffIt.sit	Yes	No	Yes	No
StuffIt X.sitx	Yes	No	Yes³	No
StuffIt self-extracting.sea	Yes	No	Yes³	No
BinHex / MacBinary.hqx .bin	No	No	Yes	No
LZX.lzx	Yes	No	No	No
TNEF mail attachmentwinmail.dat	No	No	Yes	No
SWF media extraction.swf	No	No	Yes	No
PDF image extraction.pdf	No	No	Yes	No
Single-stream compression	MacPacker		BetterZip
GZIP.gz	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
BZIP2.bz2	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
XZ.xz	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Unix compress.Z	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
LZ4.lz4	Yes	No	No	No
Zstandard.zst	No	No	Yes	Yes
Brotli.br	No	No	Yes	Yes
Compound tar streams	MacPacker		BetterZip
tar.gz / tar.bz2 / tar.xz / tar.Z.tgz .tbz2 .txz .taz	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
tar.lz4.tlz4	Yes	No	No	No
tar.zst / tar.br.tzst .tbr	No	No	Yes	Yes
Disk images and filesystems	MacPacker		BetterZip
Apple Disk Image.dmg .smi	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
ISO 9660.iso	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
SquashFS.squashfs .sfs	Yes	No	No	No
FAT.fat .img	Yes	No	No	No
NTFS.ntfs .img	Yes	No	No	No
VirtualBox VDI.vdi	Yes	No	No	No
Hyper-V VHD / VHDX.vhd .vhdx	Yes	No	No	No
VMware VMDK.vmdk	Yes	No	No	No
QEMU QCOW2.qcow2	Yes	No	No	No

YesPartialNoReadWrite

Beyond the format list

Format coverage is half the picture. These rows cover what you can do with an archive once it opens.

Capability	MacPacker	BetterZip
Open split / multi-volume setsJoining archives that arrive as .001, .z01 or .r00 parts.	Partial⁶	Yes
Create split volumesWriting an archive across several sized parts.	No	Yes
Open password-protected archivesPrompting for a password and decrypting on read.	Yes	Yes
Write encrypted archivesAES-256 on output. MacPacker's save panel exposes format and compression level only.	No	Yes
Modify an archive in placeAdding, deleting or renaming entries without a full unpack-and-repack.	Partial⁷	Yes
Archive browserA window that lists an archive's contents before you extract anything.	Yes	Yes
Browse nested archivesOpening an archive that sits inside another, without extracting the outer one first.	Yes	No
Finder / Quick Look extensionsSystem integration beyond the app window.	Yes	Yes
Command-line interfaceScriptable from a shell.	No	Yes

YesPartialNo

Notes

1MacPacker identifies formats by content rather than extension, so any ZIP-based container opens as ZIP whatever it is called.
2Writing a JAR, APK, IPA or similar means writing a ZIP container: none of these apps produce the signing or manifests that make a valid platform package.
3Supported in practice, but not listed on the vendor's own published format page.
4RAR writing needs the external rar command-line tool, which BetterZip can download and install; the RAR licence is bought separately from win.rar GmbH.
5.xip is a XAR container, so MacPacker opens it as one.
6MacPacker joins split ZIP sets only — spanned (.z01…) and numeric (.zip.001…). Split RAR or 7z sets are not recognised.
7ZIP only.

More comparisons

Compiled 10 August 2026, against the versions listed above.

Get MacPacker

v0.20.0 · macOS 14+

$ brew install --cask macpacker

.dmg .zip App Store Releases

App Store updates may lag a few days behind direct downloads due to Apple review.