Which lossless format use to store audio ?

Which lossless format use to store audio ? This question is quite hard, because the enormous amount of lossless audio compressor choices available, and it is a very difficult task to choose the one most suited for each person's needs.

Several people only take into consideration compression performance when choosing a codec. But as the following table and article shows, there are several other features worth taking into consideration when making that choice.

For example, users wanting good multiplatform compatibility and robustness (E.G, people sharing live recordings) would favour WavPack or FLAC. Another user, looking for the very highest compression available, would go with OptimFROG. Someone wanting portable support would use FLAC or ALAC, and so on.

En fin, this is not a matter worth getting too worked up about. If you later find out the codec you chose isn't the best for your needs, you can just transcompress to another format, without risk of losing quality.

Features	FLAC	WavPack	TAK	Monkey's	OptimFROG	ALAC	WMA
Encoding speed	fast	very fast	very fast	fast	slow	average	average
Decoding speed	very fast	very fast	very fast	average	average	fast	average
Compression*	58.70%	58.0%	57.0%	55.50%	54.70%	58.50%	56.30%
Flexibility**	very good	very good	very good	very good	very good	bad	bad
Error handling	yes	yes	yes	no	yes		yes
Seeking	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
Tagging	Vorbis tags	ID3/APE	APEv2 (exp.)	ID3/APE	ID3/APE	iTunes	ASF
Hardware support	very good	limited	no	limited	no	good	limited
Software support	very good	good	average	good	average	average	good
Hybrid/lossy	no	yes	no	no	yes	no	no
Replay Gain	yes	yes	yes	no	yes	sort of	no
RIFF chunks	yes	yes		yes	yes		no
Streaming	yes	yes	yes	no	yes	yes	yes
Pipe support	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
Open source	yes	yes	no	yes	no	yes (third-party)	no
Multichannel	yes	yes	no	no	no	yes	yes
High resolution	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
OS support	All	All	Win/Linux Wine	All	Win/Mac/Linux	All	Win/Mac

(table continued below)

Features	Shorten	LA	TTA	LPAC	MPEG-4 ALS	MPEG-4 SLS	Real Lossless
Encoding speed	very fast	slow	very fast	average	average	slow	slow
Decoding speed	very fast	slow	fast	fast	fast	slow	fast
Compression*	63.50%	53.50%	57.10%	57.20%	57.10%	?	57.0%
Flexibility**	bad	average	bad	bad	very good	bad	bad
Error handling	no	no	yes	no	yes	yes
Seeking	yes	yes	yes	slow	yes	yes	yes
Tagging	no	ID3v1	ID3	no	yes	yes	proprietary
Hardware support	limited	no	limited	no	no	no	no
Software support	very good	bad	average	average	bad	bad	bad
Hybrid/lossy	no	no	no	no	no	yes	no
Replay Gain	no	no	yes	no	yes	yes	no
RIFF chunks	yes	yes	no	yes
Streaming	no		no	no	yes	yes	yes
Pipe support	yes	yes	no				no
Open source	yes	no	yes	no	yes	yes	no
Multichannel	no	no	yes	no	yes	yes	no
High resolution	no	no	yes	yes	yes	yes	no
OS support	All	Win/Linux	All	Win/Linux/Sol	All	All	Win/Mac/Linux

* The Compression ratio is calculated with the division of compressed size by uncompressed size * 100. So, lower is better.

Encoding speed, Decoding speed and Compression ratio are based on each encoder's default settings.

** Flexibility refers to the amount of encoding choices offered to the users (Fast/low compression, Slow/high compression and everything inbetween)