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Head-to-head comparison of Phar, Tar and Zip

What are the good and the bad things about the three supported file formats in the phar extension? This table attempts to address that question.

**Feature matrix: Phar vs. Tar vs. Zip**
Feature	Phar	Tar	Zip
Standard File Format	No	Yes	Yes
Can be executed without the Phar Extension [1]	Yes	No	No
Per-file compression	Yes	No	Yes
Whole-archive compression	Yes	Yes	No
Whole-archive signature validation	Yes	Yes	No
Web-specific application support	Yes	Yes	Yes
Per-file Meta-data	Yes	Yes	Yes
Whole-Archive Meta-data	Yes	Yes	Yes
Archive creation/modification [2]	Yes	Yes	Yes
Full support for all stream wrapper functions	Yes	Yes	Yes
Can be created/modified even if phar.readonly=1 [3]	No	Yes	Yes

Tip

[1] PHP can only directly access the contents of a Phar archive without the Phar extension if it is using a stub that extracts the contents of the phar archive. The stub created by Phar::createDefaultStub() extracts the phar archive and runs its contents from a temporary directory if no phar extension is found.

Tip

[2] All write access requires phar.readonly to be disabled in php.ini or on the command-line directly.

Tip

[3] Only tar and zip archives without .phar in their filename and without an executable stub .phar/stub.php can be created if phar.readonly=1.