Huffman Coding Visualizer
Huffman coding is the greedy algorithm that compression forgot to improve: repeatedly merge the two rarest symbols into one node and you get the optimal prefix-free code. Type any text and watch the tree build itself bottom-up, frequent letters ending near the root with short codes and rare ones sinking deep. The code table and the achieved compression ratio versus fixed 8-bit encoding update live as you type.
Runs 100% in your browser — simulations are computed locally on your device.
Read the full guide to this tool
Notes
- Building the tree greedily — always merging the two lightest nodes — provably minimises the average code length.
- No codeword is a prefix of another, so the bitstream decodes unambiguously without separators.
- Huffman coding is the entropy-coding stage inside ZIP, JPEG and MP3.
- Runs 100% in your browser — simulations are computed locally on your device.
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