For years the format question was simply JPG, PNG, or WebP. Now there's a fourth serious contender: AVIF. Both WebP and AVIF are modern formats designed to beat JPEG and PNG, and both have wide browser support. So which should you reach for? The honest answer is that they're close, and the right pick depends on what you value — file size, encoding speed, or universal compatibility.
Where each came from
WebP was released by Google in 2010, derived from the VP8 video codec. It supports lossy and lossless modes, transparency, and animation, and it's been the default "modern" web format for over a decade.
AVIF (AV1 Image File Format) arrived around 2019, built on the newer, royalty-free AV1 video codec. It was designed from the start for high compression efficiency and supports lossy and lossless modes, transparency, animation, wide colour gamut, and HDR.
Compression: AVIF usually wins on size
At the same perceived quality, AVIF typically produces smaller files than WebP, especially at low-to-medium quality settings and on photographic content. Rough figures from independent comparisons:
| Comparison | Typical size reduction |
|---|---|
| WebP vs JPEG | 25–34% smaller |
| AVIF vs JPEG | ~50% smaller |
| AVIF vs WebP | ~20% smaller |
The gap is largest when you push quality down — AVIF degrades more gracefully, holding together at aggressive settings where WebP and JPEG start to show artefacts. AVIF also handles smooth gradients (skies, soft shadows) notably better, with less banding.
Quality and features
Beyond raw size, AVIF has a richer feature set: 10- and 12-bit colour depth, wide colour gamut, and HDR — all relevant for high-end photography and displays. WebP is limited to 8-bit colour. For everyday web images this rarely matters, but for showcase photography it can.
One area where WebP can edge ahead is very sharp, high-frequency detail (fine text rendered into an image, intricate line art). AVIF's aggressive compression occasionally smears such detail at lower quality settings, so for screenshots of text, test before committing.
Browser support
Both are now widely supported, but WebP has the longer head start:
- WebP — effectively universal, around 98% of users, supported across all current browsers.
- AVIF — supported in current Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge; coverage is broad but slightly behind WebP, and some older devices and apps still can't decode it.
For a public website, the safe pattern is to serve AVIF with a WebP (or JPEG) fallback using the <picture> element, so every browser gets the best format it understands.
The catch: encoding speed
AVIF's superior compression comes at a cost — it is significantly slower to encode than WebP, sometimes by an order of magnitude at high effort settings. For a handful of images this is invisible; for a large batch or an automated pipeline it adds up. WebP encodes quickly, which is part of why it remains popular for bulk work.
Use AVIF when smallest size or best gradient quality matters and you can serve a fallback. Use WebP when you want a single, fast-to-create file that just works almost everywhere. For maximum compatibility with older apps, keep JPG/PNG.
What this tool exports
This converter runs entirely in your browser using the Canvas API, which reliably exports JPG, PNG, and WebP. Browser-based AVIF encoding isn't consistently available across browsers yet, so AVIF output isn't offered here — but WebP gives you most of the modern-format benefit with universal support and instant, private, in-browser processing. Many browsers can still open an AVIF you already have, so you can convert an AVIF to JPG or PNG here if you need a more compatible copy.
Related reading: JPG vs PNG vs WebP, image formats and page speed, and what determines image file size.
Drop your JPGs or PNGs and export smaller WebP files — all in your browser.