The paper provides a new look at compensated compactness and paracommutators. It is shown that there is a one-to-one correspondence between compensated quantities and paracommutators, that the H1-regularity of compensated quantities is equivalent to bounded mean oscillation boundedness of paracommutators, that the weak convergence of compensated quantities is equivalent to vanishing mean oscillation compactness of paracommutators, that the Schatten–von Neumann Sp-property is a natural generalization of vanishing mean oscillation compactness, that the theory of paracommutators provides a ready-made tool for Sp-regularity of compensated quantities, and that the cut-off phenomenon of paracommutators exactly coincides with the vanishing moment properties of the compensated quantities. Some further examples are given.