@addmaple/gzip

Fast Gzip compression in the browser and Node.js using Rust + WASM.

3.5x-5.5x faster than pako.

Implementation (Rust)

This package is backed by these Rust crates in the wasm-fast-compress repo:

• codec-gzip (this repo): high-level codec wrapper
• flate2 (crates.io): gzip/deflate API
• zlib-rs (via flate2 feature zlib-rs): fast, pure-Rust zlib/deflate backend with WASM SIMD128 intrinsics

SIMD acceleration (how it works)

• We build two WASM binaries:
  • gzip.base.wasm: compiled without +simd128
  • gzip.simd.wasm: compiled with -C target-feature=+simd128
• At runtime, the JS loader detects SIMD support and loads the best binary automatically.

zlib-rs includes WASM SIMD128 code paths (e.g. match finding / checksums) that activate when simd128 is enabled in the SIMD build.

Installation

npm install @addmaple/gzip

Usage

import { init, compress } from '@addmaple/gzip';

// Optional: call init() to avoid first-call latency.
// If you skip init(), the first compress/decompress call will lazy-initialize.
await init();

const input = new TextEncoder().encode('hello world');
const compressed = await compress(input, { level: 9 });

Lazy init (init() optional)

import { compress } from '@addmaple/gzip';

const input = new TextEncoder().encode('hello world');
const compressed = await compress(input, { level: 6 }); // triggers lazy init on first call

Streaming compression

For chunked input (e.g. file uploads), use StreamingCompressor:

import { init, StreamingCompressor } from '@addmaple/gzip';

// Optional: init() is not required; streaming helper also lazy-inits.
await init();

const gz = new StreamingCompressor({ level: 6 });

// First chunk(s)
const out1 = await gz.compressChunk(chunk1, false);
const out2 = await gz.compressChunk(chunk2, false);

// Final chunk (flushes footer + closes)
const out3 = await gz.compressChunk(chunk3, true);

Streaming to fetch() (ergonomic)

import { createCompressionStream } from '@addmaple/gzip';

const body = file.stream().pipeThrough(createCompressionStream({ level: 6 }));

await fetch('/upload', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: {
    'Content-Encoding': 'gzip',
  },
  body,
  duplex: 'half',
});

Streaming decompression from fetch() (ergonomic)

import { createDecompressionStream } from '@addmaple/gzip';

const res = await fetch('/download');
if (!res.body) throw new Error('No response body');

const decompressed = res.body.pipeThrough(createDecompressionStream());

const buf = await new Response(decompressed).arrayBuffer();

Inline (Zero-latency)

WASM bytes embedded directly in JS — no separate file fetching:

import { init, compress } from '@addmaple/gzip/inline';

await init();
const compressed = await compress(input);

API

init()

Initialize the WASM module.

compress(input, options?)

• input: Uint8Array
• options.level: 1-9 (default: 6)
• Returns: Promise<Uint8Array>

Sponsor

Development of this module was sponsored by addmaple.com — a modern data analysis platform.

License

MIT