# Brotli 24 Hacker News commenters recommended Brotli and 18 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 7 of 13 months. **Verdict:** Google-maintained compression library whose built-in dictionary suits HTML, CSS, JS and JSON, often beating gzip on size. Critics say it is slower than zstd and has had security problems. ## Why people recommend it - Better compression ratio than gzip and zstd (6 comments): "Modern browsers support brotli or zstd, which is a lot better in terms of compression." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45945199)) "sometimes Brotli has a small edge when it comes to compression ratio" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46035457)) "pleased with brotli numbers compared to gzip" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48593467)) - Strong on HTML, CSS, JS and JSON (2 comments): "Brotli was designed for html compression so despite/while being a relatively inferior algorithm, its stock dictionary is all html/css/js-trained/optimized." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46446441)) "Brotli also benefits out-of-the-box in fresh compression windows with some common JSON patterns always in the Brotli static dictionary." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46122499)) - Fast decompression, plenty for many uses (2 comments): "Brotli decompresses 3-5x faster than LZMA2 and is within 0.6 % of the compression density" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46035817)) "brotli decompression is already plenty fast" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46735810)) - Good for small data and fonts (2 comments): "Brotli compression is very much recommended, specifically for bevy and font stuff, where it shines compared to zip" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46359580)) "brotli at the same speed as zstd gives better results for small data" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46747347)) ## What people warn about - Slower than zstd at compressing and decompressing (5 comments): "Brotli compresses my files way better, but it's doing it way slower." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46724383)) "It's slower, though. Too high a price to pay for safety it seems." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50223052)) "brotli slower again but still much faster than xz" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46722929)) - Security bugs and slow patching (3 comments): "passes untrusted input through a package built in C which takes over a year to make security releases when the changelog already references those" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50230712)) "why it took Google almost 8 months to release a new version of a common dependency" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50237563)) "despite the fact that it also increases the attack surface" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50228687)) - Complex C codebase, not in Rust (3 comments): "Why the hell is a lib like brotli that processes public general internet traffic, and maintained by google, not in rust?" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50220271)) "Brotli is much more complicated than the gzip/deflate it replaces." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50220406)) "they're really not encouraging independent implementations" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50217857)) - Dictionary and compatibility concerns (3 comments): "I have no objection to adding Brotli, but I hope they take the compatability more seriously." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46725946)) "It seems they're using the standard dictionary, which is utterly bizzare." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46722995)) "Brotli w/o a custom dictionary is a weird choice to begin with." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46719585)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [Zstandard (zstd)](https://hackerapproved.com/p/zstd.md): 111 recommend - [gzip](https://hackerapproved.com/p/gzip.md): 23 recommend - [tar](https://hackerapproved.com/p/tar.md): 19 recommend - [NNCP](https://hackerapproved.com/p/nncp.md): 15 recommend - [xz](https://hackerapproved.com/p/xz.md): 14 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Brotli", https://hackerapproved.com/p/brotli/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).