Type Pros Cons Useful for
PHP Exteniosn Fast, supports a lot of functions Sometimes can not support specific functions (e.g. password-protection in zip on old php versions) Use it when possible (when extensions installed)
Utilities + bridge Uses system utilities, so should be fast (and even faster PHP Extensions) Do not support streaming Packing a lot of files / Unpacking the whole archives without streaming
Pure PHP Works without PHP Extensions or system utilities, can be installed via composer only Uses a lot of memory, lack of speed Fallback method

Proposals for installation drivers

Drivers

PHP extensions

Driver Formats php extension notes
Zip zip, jar zip supports password-protection since 7.2.0
Rar rar rar read-only mode
TarByPhar zip, tar, tar.gz, tar.bz2 phar Has a bug #71966 in ext-phar (related issue) - an archive will ./ in paths cannot be opened.

PHP extensions for compression only

These drivers support only compressed (not archived) data. They support opening, extracting&streaming and creation.

Driver Formats PHP extension
Bzip .bz2 bzip2
Gzip .gz zlib
Lzma .xz xz - 5.x / 7.x

Utilities + bridge

Driver Formats utility + bridge
SevenZip 7z, xz, bzip2, gzip, tar, zip, wim, ar, arj, cab, chm, cpio, cramfs, dmg, ext, fat, gpt, hfs, ihex, iso, lzh, lzma, mbr, msi, nsis, ntfs, qcow2, rar, rpm, squashfs, udf, uefi, vdi, vhd, vmdk, wim, xar, z p7zip (7za) + gemorroj/archive7z
AlchemyZippy zip, tar, tar.gz, tar.bz2 zip/tar + alchemy/zippy

If you install SevenZip and AlchemyZippy at the same time:

  1. You should specify symfony/console version before installation to any 3.x.x version: composer require symfony/process:~3.4, because they require different symfony/process versions.
  2. Install archive7z version 4.0.0: composer require gemorroj/archive7z:~4.0

Pure php implementation

Works with binary data in php-land (= eats a lot of memory for big archives).

Driver Formats library notes
NelexaZip zip nelexa/zip and optionally php-extensions (bz2, fileinfo, iconv, openssl)  
SplitbrainPhpArchive zip, tar, tar.gz, tar.bz2 splitbrain/php-archive and optionally php-extensions (zlib, bz2)  
TarByPear tar, tar.gz, tar.bz2, tar.xz, tar.Z pear/archive_tar and optionally php-extensions (zlib, bzip2, xz - 5.x / 7.x dont support updating archive (deleteFiles)
Cab cab wapmorgan/cab-archive Getting files content and extraction is supported only on PHP 7.0.22+, 7.1.8+, 7.2.0. Support only opening & extraction
Iso iso phpclasses/php-iso-file Support only opening & extraction

Full support matrix

Result of ./vendor/bin/cam system:formats when all drivers installed and configured (except of AlchemyZippy):

+-----------------+------------+------+------+------+-------+--------+--------+--------+-----------+-----+-----+-----+------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+------+-------+
| driver / format | zip        | rar  | gz   | bz2  | xz    | tar    | tgz    | tbz2   | 7z        | cab | iso | arj | uefi | gpt | mbr | msi | dmg | rpm | deb | udf | txz  | tar.z |
+-----------------+------------+------+------+------+-------+--------+--------+--------+-----------+-----+-----+-----+------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+------+-------+
| Zip             | oOtxsadTcC |      |      |      |       |        |        |        |           |     |     |     |      |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |      |       |
| Rar             |            | oOxs |      |      |       |        |        |        |           |     |     |     |      |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |      |       |
| Gzip            |            |      | oxsc |      |       |        |        |        |           |     |     |     |      |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |      |       |
| Bzip            |            |      |      | oxsc |       |        |        |        |           |     |     |     |      |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |      |       |
| Lzma            |            |      |      |      | oxsc  |        |        |        |           |     |     |     |      |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |      |       |
| TarByPhar       | oxsadc     |      |      |      |       | oxsadc | oxsadc | oxsadc |           |     |     |     |      |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |      |       |
| SevenZip        | oOxadcC    |      |      |      |       | oxadc  |        |        | oOtxadTcC | ox  | ox  | ox  | ox   | ox  | ox  | ox  | ox  | ox  | ox  | ox  |      |       |
| AlchemyZippy    |            |      |      |      |       |        |        |        |           |     |     |     |      |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |      |       |
| NelexaZip       | oOxad      |      |      |      |       |        |        |        |           |     |     |     |      |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |      |       |
| TarByPear       |            |      |      |      |       | oxac   | oxac   | oxac   |           |     |     |     |      |     |     |     |     |     |     |     | oxac |       |
| Iso             |            |      |      |      |       |        |        |        |           |     | ox  |     |      |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |      |       |
| Cab             |            |      |      |      |       |        |        |        |           | ox  |     |     |      |     |     |     |     |     |     |     |      |       |
+-----------------+------------+------+------+------+-------+--------+--------+--------+-----------+-----+-----+-----+------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+------+-------+