UnderscoreJS 0.5.5 - as small as it gets (near-perfect GZIP compression)

Choose a version:

The original file has 22328 bytes (21.8k) and is available from the project website.
There you can find the official minified version, too, which brings down the size to 8205 bytes (8.0k, 37%).

After GZIP compression these minified files vary in size:

Boot	2961 bytes (2.9k)	CDN
gzip -6 (default)	2683 bytes (2.6k)	local copy
gzip -9	2682 bytes (2.6k)	local copy
Baidu	2679 bytes (2.6k)	CDN
cdnjs	2667 bytes (2.6k)	CDN
libdeflate -12	2606 bytes (2.5k)	local copy
7zip -mx=9 -tgzip	2602 bytes (2.5k)	local copy
pigz -11 -n	2602 bytes (2.5k)	local copy
zultra	2600 bytes (2.5k)	local copy
kzip -s0 -rn -b0	2599 bytes (2.5k)	local copy
Zopfli	2596 bytes (2.5k)	local copy

perma-link to the smallest file on my server:
http://minime.stephan-brumme.com/files/underscorejs/underscore-0.5.5.min.js (or via HTTPS)

You will automatically get the smallest UnderscoreJS 0.5.5 file, ETag caching is available and
if your browser doesn't support GZIP decompression then the uncompressed version will be sent.

Currently best Zopfli settings

Save 71 bytes by using my UnderscoreJS 0.5.5 Zopfli version instead of the best available CDN (2.73% smaller than cdnjs, 2596 vs. 2667 bytes):

Download

You can use my super-compressed files for whatever purpose you like as long as you respect the library's original license agreement.
There are no restrictions from my side - but please avoid hot-linking if you run a high-traffic website.

These command-line settings yielded the best compression ratio so far (Linux version of zopfli-krzymod):
zopfli --i10000 --mb8 --mls2048 --bsr23 --lazy --ohh

(found February 2, 2016)

Description	Value	Parameter
iterations	10000	--i10000
maximum blocks	8	--mb8
maximum length score	2048	--mls2048
block splitting recursion	23	--bsr23
lazy matching in LZ77	yes	--lazy
optimized Huffman headers	yes	--ohh
initial random W for iterations	1	--rw1
initial random Z for iterations	2	--rz2

Verify file integrity

After decompression, my uncompressed files are identical to the original ones:

MD5:
curl --silent --compressed https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jashkenas/underscore/0.5.5/underscore-min.js --location | md5sum
69434bc851c675c6c36c75288817548e -
curl --silent --compressed https://minime.stephan-brumme.com/files/underscorejs/underscore-0.5.5.min.zopfli.js.gz | md5sum
69434bc851c675c6c36c75288817548e -

SHA1:
curl --silent --compressed https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jashkenas/underscore/0.5.5/underscore-min.js --location | sha1sum
f6ae0423f0b85a11912e83275cf75219de89d635 -
curl --silent --compressed https://minime.stephan-brumme.com/files/underscorejs/underscore-0.5.5.min.zopfli.js.gz | sha1sum
f6ae0423f0b85a11912e83275cf75219de89d635 -

These CDNs send you the original file:

CDN	Size (compressed)	MD5 (uncompressed)	Timestamp
Boot	2961 bytes	69434bc851c675c6c36c75288817548e	(invalid)
cdnjs	2667 bytes	69434bc851c675c6c36c75288817548e	(invalid)

And some CDNs send you a different file:

CDN	Size (compressed)	MD5 (uncompressed)	Comment / Diff	Timestamp
Baidu	2679 bytes	45e8ad93d795ae6ced1ad9f66c7f595c	only whitespaces differ	(invalid)

Note: only the MD5 hashes are shown to keep things simple.

Other Versions

Available UnderscoreJS versions at minime.stephan-brumme.com:

1.13.6, 1.13.5, 1.13.4, 1.13.3, 1.13.2, 1.13.1, 1.13.0,
1.12.1, 1.12.0,
1.11.0,
1.10.2, 1.10.1, 1.10.0,
1.9.2, 1.9.1, 1.9.0,
1.8.3, 1.8.2, 1.8.1,
1.7.0,
1.6.0,
1.5.2, 1.5.0,
1.4.4, 1.4.3, 1.4.2, 1.4.1, 1.4.0,
1.3.3, 1.3.2, 1.3.1, 1.3.0,
1.2.4, 1.2.3, 1.2.2, 1.2.1, 1.2.0,
1.1.7, 1.1.5, 1.1.4, 1.1.3, 1.1.2, 1.1.1, 1.1.0,
1.0.4, 1.0.3, 1.0.2, 1.0.1, 1.0.0,
0.6.0,
0.5.7, 0.5.6, 0.5.5, 0.5.4, 0.5.3, 0.5.2, 0.5.1, 0.5.0,
0.4.7, 0.4.6, 0.4.5, 0.4.4, 0.4.3, 0.4.2, 0.4.1, 0.4.0,
0.3.3, 0.3.2, 0.3.1, 0.3.0,
0.2.0,
0.1.1, 0.1.0

The project site contains an overview how well these versions were compressed.
Other interesting projects are AngularJS, BackboneJS, Bootstrap, D3, Dojo, Ember, jQuery, Knockout, lodash, React, Socket.IO, ThreeJS and Vue.

Changelog

Best Zopfli parameters so far:

Size	Improvement	Parameters	Found
2596 bytes	-1 byte	zopfli --i10000 --mls2048 --bsr23 --lazy --ohh	February 2, 2016 @ 23:21
2597 bytes	-1 byte	zopfli --i1000 --mls64 --bsr12 --lazy --ohh	February 2, 2016 @ 20:58
2598 bytes	-2 bytes	zopfli --i1000 --mls128 --bsr20 --lazy --ohh	February 2, 2016 @ 20:57
2600 bytes	–	zopfli --i100 --mls128 --bsr20 --lazy --ohh	February 2, 2016 @ 20:57

If there are multiple parameter sets yielding the same compressed size, only the first one found is shown.

Most recent activity on July 20, 2020 @ 12:47.

Heatmaps

This Zopfli heatmap visualizes how compression changes when modifying the --bsr and --mls parameter.
Cell's contents is the best filesize achieved (in bytes, hover with mouse over cells to see number of iterations).

Good parameters are green, bad are red. The best and worst are bold as well.
The brightness of the blue background color indicates how many iterations were processed:
10,000, 100,000 or 1,000,000.

bsr \ mls	2	4	8	16	32	64	128	256	512	1024	2048	4096	8192	16384	32768
bsr \ mls	2	4	8	16	32	64	128	256	512	1024	2048	4096	8192	16384	32768
2	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2597	2597
4	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2597	2597
6	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2597	2597
7	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2597	2597
8	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2597	2597
9	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2597	2597
10	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2597	2597
11	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2597	2597
12	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2597	2597
13	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2597	2597
14	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2597	2597
15	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2597	2597
16	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2597	2597
17	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2597	2597
18	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2597	2597
19	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2597	2597
20	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2597	2597
21	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2597	2597
22	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2597	2597
23	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2597	2597
25	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2597	2597
30	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2597	2597
40	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2596	2596	2596	2596	2596	2597	2597	2597

Due to the Monte Carlo design of my search algorithm, not all parameters have reached the same number of iterations yet:

Iterations	Min. Bytes	Reduction	Coverage
100	2600 bytes	–	100%
1,000	2597 bytes	-3 bytes	100%
10,000	2596 bytes	-1 byte	100%
100,000	2596 bytes	–	73.33%
1,000,000	2596 bytes	–	0.29%
10,000,000	–	–	–

KZIP has far less options available for tuning/optimization. I only played around with the number of blocks (parameter -n):

Blocks	Min. Bytes	Compared To Best Zopfli	Compared To Best KZIP
(any)	2599 bytes	+3 bytes (+0.12%)	–
1	2599 bytes	+3 bytes (+0.12%)	–
2	2622 bytes	+26 bytes (+1.00%)	+23 bytes
3	2658 bytes	+62 bytes (+2.39%)	+59 bytes
4	2669 bytes	+73 bytes (+2.81%)	+70 bytes
5	2695 bytes	+99 bytes (+3.81%)	+96 bytes
6	2723 bytes	+127 bytes (+4.89%)	+124 bytes
7	2757 bytes	+161 bytes (+6.20%)	+158 bytes
8	2795 bytes	+199 bytes (+7.67%)	+196 bytes

Non-DEFLATE Algorithms

Archivers based on completely different compression algorithms often produce superior results.
Unfortunately, browsers only support gzip compression at the moment.
However, support for Brotli is constantly growing - for example, your browser actually supports it !

Algorithm	Program	Parameters	Size	Compared To Best Zopfli
RAR (proprietary)	RAR	rar a -m5 -md64m -mc63:128t -mt1	2328 bytes	-268 bytes (-10.32%)
Brotli (Wikipedia)	brotli	brotli -q 11	2400 bytes	-196 bytes (-7.55%)
Zstandard (Wikipedia)	zstd	zstd -19	2614 bytes	+18 bytes (+0.69%)
PPMd (Wikipedia)	7zip	7za a -mx=9 -m0=ppmd	2653 bytes	+57 bytes (+2.20%)
Burrows-Wheeler transform (Wikipedia)	bzip2	bzip2 -9	2666 bytes	+70 bytes (+2.70%)
LZMA2 (Wikipedia)	xz	xz -9	2696 bytes	+100 bytes (+3.85%)
ZPAQ (Wikipedia)	zpaq	zpaq -method 69	3222 bytes	+626 bytes (+24.11%)

Detailled Analysis

I wrote a DEFLATE decoder in Javascript. Click the button below to start a client-side analysis of the smallest gzipped files (may take a second):

Load and Parse Data

Notes: pigz is a fast open source multi-threaded implementation of gzip written by one of the original authors of gzip.
However, when using compression level 11, pigz actually switches to the slower Zopfli algorithm and isn't multi-threaded anymore.
KrzyMOD's extensions to Zopfli offer the highest level of configuration and is therefore used for my brute-force search.
Ken Silverman wrote the closed-source KZIP compression program and Jonathon Fowler ported it to Linux.
Defluff was created by Joachim Henke; DeflOpt is a tool by Ben Jos Walbeehm.

website made by Stephan Brumme in 2015 and still improving in 2024.
all timestamps are displayed in central european time. see my changelog.
no flash, not even images or external css files - and everything squeezed into a single html file.
which was handsomely compressed before releasing it into the wild internet - obviously.

please visit my homepage and my blog, too.
email: minime (at) stephan-brumme.com

All trademarks are property of their respective owners. You know, the boring legal stuff.