7-Zip vs. BitLocker Drive Encryption

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
7-Zip
Score 9.4 out of 10
N/A
7-Zip is a file archiving tool free and open source under the GNU LGPL license, which features strong AES-256 encryption in 7z and ZIP formats, self-extracting capability for 7z format, and localizations for 87 languages. It is available for Windows.N/A
BitLocker
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft's BitLocker is an endpoint encryption option.
$100
One Time Fee
Pricing
7-ZipBitLocker Drive Encryption
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Windows 10 Home
$100.00
One Time Fee
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
7-ZipBitLocker
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
7-ZipBitLocker Drive Encryption
Considered Both Products
7-Zip
Chose 7-Zip
7-Zip is free of charge and meets all our needs in handling compressed files, both those produced by us and those that come from third parties.
The interface is the faster I've ever seen.
The competitor evaluation versions have ads or a lot of reminders that I've to pay now or …
BitLocker
Chose BitLocker
BitLocker Drive Encryption is much more reliable. We used McAfee drive encryption prior to moving to BitLocker Drive Encryption. While McAfee was useful, it's required pre-boot environment always fell out of sync with AD passwords, causing users difficulty to sign into their …
Chose BitLocker
BitLocker Drive Encryption solution offering is cheaper than the one that McAfee offers, it will help you with specific business concerns like "how many encrypted assets do I have?" it's easy to maintain, easy to deploy, and easy to track. It's best suited for companies that …
Chose BitLocker
This was formerly called Symantec PGP encryption. We selected BitLocker since this is what the University has deployed and is currently supporting. BitLocker has many advantages over Symantec PGP, as BitLocker is built-into all Windows computers. With PGP, this was a …
Chose BitLocker
I can't think of any alternative that I know of.
Chose BitLocker
Previously used TrueCrypt until vulnerabilities were discovered. Overall performance improved when going from TrueCrypt to BitLocker.
Chose BitLocker
Most other whole drive encryption tools are really not that easy to manage and come with big performance when compared to Bitlocker. Also, a lot of them don't use TPM which in my opinion gives you better protection.

As for Truecrypt which was what we were using before, it is not …
Chose BitLocker
There is not much alternative to Bitlocker, you may want to try self-encrypted disk, but for a business perspective, it is not as easy as Bitlocker to manage. Self-encrypted may be faster, but recovering data for a system administrator is a disaster.

There was more alternative …
Chose BitLocker
There really is no competition with disk encryption at least on a Windows platform. Most Microsoft OS's have bitlocker encryption available to them.
Chose BitLocker
BitLocker is a lot easier to enable. It's a simple flick of the switch inside Intune.
Best Alternatives
7-ZipBitLocker Drive Encryption
Small Businesses
Cove Data Protection
Cove Data Protection
Score 9.9 out of 10
Bitdefender GravityZone
Bitdefender GravityZone
Score 9.1 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Cove Data Protection
Cove Data Protection
Score 9.9 out of 10
Symantec Encryption
Symantec Encryption
Score 9.9 out of 10
Enterprises
Microsoft Exchange
Microsoft Exchange
Score 9.2 out of 10
Trellix Complete Data Protection
Trellix Complete Data Protection
Score 8.2 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
7-ZipBitLocker Drive Encryption
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
7-ZipBitLocker Drive Encryption
Likelihood to Recommend
Support a wide range of languages .
Fast for preview zipped files.
Very good compress ratio in 7z format.
Old style interface, but quick and easy to learn.
Command line version with parameter switches for batch scripts.
In advance settings the amount of concurrent threads can be decided by the user.
Free of charge without advertisement, bloatware o potentially unwanted program.
A bit slow and cpu consuming when there are a lot of heavy files
Read full review
It can be used if you are already familiar with other Microsoft System Center tools, it will provide integration and it will be easy to use from an Administrator's perspective. However, if you want more detailed information related to the troubleshooting, specific fields, or data, it will not be that granular.
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Pros
  • compress/decompress fast
  • interface easy of use
  • command line capabilities
  • various format supported
  • multiplatform
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  • It is fairly easy to use, from both a technician and users point of view. The install itself is pretty simple, and setup of the software is also fairly simple. For users, it is easy to use the software to encrypt the computer.
  • It doesn't seem to use a whole lot of system resources when the encryption is enabled on the computer. You shouldn't experience any slowness of the computer, other than the time it takes to first encrypt the computer.
  • It serves its main purpose very well, and that is to protect computers from intrusions/data breaches. It is particularly good for protecting computers that are accessing/storing sensitive/confidential data.
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Cons
  • outdated interface... but is very quick and is not so bad
  • improve speed of compression algorithm
  • some compressed files are not fully supported
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  • Even if it's the best we tested, I think write performance could be improved. Maybe with dedicated hardware inside the TPM?
  • No integration with OS password is a shame as most others have it and it is Microsoft on Microsoft so they can probably do it better then anyone else and safer.
  • I wish they would support multiple passwords like FileVault on macOS. If it's a shared computer, you have to give the only password to Bitlocker to both users.
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Usability
No answers on this topic
Very easy to enable.
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Support Rating
No answers on this topic
Not good nor bad, BitLocker encryption is a symptom of our era, we need to protect ourselves and our data, BitLocker is a tool, as an IT we have to deal with it but it doesn't bring any benefit to my daily operations.
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Alternatives Considered
7-Zip is free of charge and meets all our needs in handling compressed files, both those produced by us and those that come from third parties.
The interface is the faster I've ever seen.
The competitor evaluation versions have ads or a lot of reminders that I've to pay now or then.
Read full review
This was formerly called Symantec PGP encryption. We selected BitLocker since this is what the University has deployed and is currently supporting. BitLocker has many advantages over Symantec PGP, as BitLocker is built-into all Windows computers. With PGP, this was a commercial product that had to be installed on each machine. That product also was not as easy or intuitive to use as BitLocker, and there were also more issues/problems that occasionally occurred with PGP.
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Return on Investment
  • 0 cost with no suprises
  • 1 tool for many formats
  • 0 time needed to learn how to use
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  • Protects against data loss and theft, which can be very expensive if PII, SPI, PHI is involved. Fines for this type of loss can be very high, along with the costs of notification, and discovery.
  • Cost is included in Windows O/S, without needing additional licensing costs.
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ScreenShots