diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index e4c57c8..8620cb9 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -261,6 +261,13 @@ You can update several databases:
 php bin/console geoip2:update city country
 ```
 
+Optionally installing splitbrain/php-archive uses significantly less memory when updating a database
+and can avoid out of memory errors:
+
+```
+composer req splitbrain/php-archive
+```
+
 ### Download GeoIP database
 
 You can download custom database with console command:
diff --git a/composer.json b/composer.json
index a14ee9e..54ed0fb 100644
--- a/composer.json
+++ b/composer.json
@@ -30,5 +30,8 @@
         "phpunit/phpunit": "~7.0|~8.0|~9.0",
         "phpstan/phpstan": "^0.12",
         "phpstan/phpstan-phpunit": "^0.12"
+    },
+    "suggest": {
+        "splitbrain/php-archive": "Greatly reduces memory usage for the geoip2:update command"
     }
 }
diff --git a/src/Downloader/MaxMindDownloader.php b/src/Downloader/MaxMindDownloader.php
index 3bc80de..18adfa3 100644
--- a/src/Downloader/MaxMindDownloader.php
+++ b/src/Downloader/MaxMindDownloader.php
@@ -12,6 +12,7 @@
 namespace GpsLab\Bundle\GeoIP2Bundle\Downloader;
 
 use Psr\Log\LoggerInterface;
+use splitbrain\PHPArchive\Tar;
 use Symfony\Component\Filesystem\Filesystem;
 
 /**
@@ -67,20 +68,32 @@ public function download(string $url, string $target): void
         $this->fs->copy($url, $tmp_zip, true);
 
         $this->logger->debug(sprintf('Download complete to %s', $tmp_zip));
-        $this->logger->debug(sprintf('De-compressing file to %s', $tmp_unzip));
 
         $this->fs->mkdir(dirname($target), 0755);
 
-        // decompress gz file
-        $zip = new \PharData($tmp_zip);
-        $tar = $zip->decompress();
+        if (class_exists(Tar::class)) {
+            $this->logger->debug(sprintf('Extracting archive file to %s', $tmp_untar));
 
-        $this->logger->debug('Decompression complete');
-        $this->logger->debug(sprintf('Extract tar file to %s', $tmp_untar));
+            // extract tar.gz archive
+            $tar = new Tar();
+            $tar->open($tmp_zip);
+            $tar->extract($tmp_untar);
+            $tar->close();
+            unset($tar);
+        } else {
+            $this->logger->debug(sprintf('De-compressing file to %s', $tmp_unzip));
 
-        // extract tar archive
-        $tar->extractTo($tmp_untar);
-        unset($zip, $tar);
+            // decompress gz file
+            $zip = new \PharData($tmp_zip);
+            $tar = $zip->decompress();
+
+            $this->logger->debug('Decompression complete');
+            $this->logger->debug(sprintf('Extract tar file to %s', $tmp_untar));
+
+            // extract tar archive
+            $tar->extractTo($tmp_untar);
+            unset($zip, $tar);
+        }
 
         $this->logger->debug('Tar archive extracted');