Install lizard with Homebrew

Project links

• Homepage

Commands and aliases

• lizardcat
• unlizard

Project history

The inikep/lizard repository was created on GitHub in October 2015. The README states that Lizard was formerly LZ5 and is based on Yann Collet's LZ4 library, while using a compression format that is not compatible with LZ4.

The project exposes several compression modes: fast LZ4-like levels, LIZv1 levels aimed at stronger ratios, and Huffman-coded variants. The upstream README frames the design as fast decompression without relying on SSE or AVX extensions.

Adoption history

Early public releases were named LZ5 in 2015 and 2016. The GitHub release named lizard v1.0 was published in March 2017, marking the rename visible to package managers and users.

The upstream README added a 2025 update explaining that Lizard's 2017 niche had narrowed because LZ4 and zstd had improved substantially. That makes the package more of a compression-history artifact than a default modern choice.

How it is used

The Homebrew formula installs command-line tools such as lizardcat and unlizard for working with the Lizard stream format.

For package users, Lizard matters most when reproducing older benchmark comparisons or handling data produced with the Lizard format; for new compression choices, upstream points readers toward LZ4 and zstd performance progress.

Why package nerds care

brew:lizard is the reason Homebrew's unrelated cyclomatic-complexity analyzer is packaged as lizard-analyzer. The collision is a neat example of why package names, executable names, and upstream project names do not always line up.

Compression packages often preserve niche codecs long after the mainstream ecosystem standardizes elsewhere, because archives, benchmarks, and reproducible experiments can outlive the period when a codec was a leading recommendation.

Timeline

• 2015: inikep/lizard repository created on GitHub.
• 2015: LZ5 r131b release published.
• 2017: lizard v1.0 release published after earlier LZ5-tagged releases.
• 2025: lizard v2.1 release and README update described the compressor as outdated relative to improved LZ4 and zstd.

Related projects

• Lizard is directly related to LZ4 because its library is based on LZ4 while using a different format.
• The upstream README compares it with zlib, zstd, and brotli, especially for low and medium compression levels.

Sources

• https://api.github.com/repos/inikep/lizard
• https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/lizard
• https://github.com/inikep/lizard
• https://github.com/inikep/lizard/releases/tag/r131b
• https://github.com/inikep/lizard/releases/tag/v1.0
• https://github.com/inikep/lizard/releases/tag/v2.1
• https://github.com/lz4/lz4
• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/inikep/lizard/master/README.md