7z is an alternative to zip

Create an archive a montior compression progress:

7z a archive.zip my-folder/

a stands for add

Snapshot of the compression progress:

7-Zip [64] 16.02 : Copyright (c) 1999-2016 Igor Pavlov : 2016-05-21
p7zip Version 16.02 (locale=C,Utf16=off,HugeFiles=on,64 bits,1 CPU QEMU Virtual CPU version 1.0 (623),ASM)

Scanning the drive:
1004 folders, 136557 files, 6612288441 bytes (6306 MiB)                        

Creating archive: archive.zip

Items to compress: 137561

 98% 133273 + file/ . /01/12345.jpg   

7z also give you a nice ensurance, that everything is OK, when it's done.

Files read from disk: 136557
Archive size: 6118548821 bytes (5836 MiB)
Everything is Ok

zip -er test.zip MyFiles

From man zip

-e
--encrypt

Encrypt the contents of the zip archive using a password which is entered on the terminal in response to a prompt (this will not be echoed; if standard error is not a tty, zip will exit with an error).  The password prompt is repeated to save the user from typing errors.

-r
--recurse-paths
Travel the directory structure recursively

-P
--password password
Use password to encrypt zipfile entries (if any).  THIS IS INSECURE!

zip -er -P mypassword test.zip myFiles