Pako - JavaScript Zlib Compression

Pako is a high-performance JavaScript port of the zlib library, designed for fast data compression and decompression directly within web browsers and Node.js environments. The current stable version is 2.1.0. It aims to provide binary-compatible results with the original C zlib implementation (v1.2.8 as per the README), demonstrating near-native speed in modern JavaScript engines for CPU-intensive tasks. Pako differentiates itself by its modular design, allowing individual components to be used or browserified, and its support for both raw deflate/inflate streams and gzip format. It handles various input types, including automatic UTF-8 recoding for strings during compression and optional UTF-8 string output for decompression. Its release cadence is generally feature-driven and as needed, rather than fixed time intervals.