It has similar features to ZIP: supports multiple files and directories with random access, in-place updates, and has a central directory. But it also can optionally merge consecutive file bodies for improved cross-file compression, and/or define a shared dictionary to tune compression for a particular set of files.
I think it can also be an interesting option for custom package/bundle formats that need an archive, and would either use compressed tarballs (awful parsing, no random access) or ZIP (worse compression).
The shared dictionary support is for HTTP compression[1]: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-httpbis-compress...
I think it can also be an interesting option for custom package/bundle formats that need an archive, and would either use compressed tarballs (awful parsing, no random access) or ZIP (worse compression).