WebP vs AVIF vs JPG: which is best for your website?
Images are usually the heaviest part of a web page. Picking the right format can cut page weight dramatically and improve your Core Web Vitals scores.
The short answer
- AVIF for the smallest photos when you can spare a little extra encoding time.
- WebP as the safe, fast, all-round choice for photos and graphics with transparency.
- JPG when the image must work everywhere, including email and older apps.
- PNG for screenshots, diagrams and images that must be pixel-perfect.
- SVG for logos and icons. It is vector, so it’s tiny and sharp at any size.
How they compare
| Format | Typical size vs JPG | Transparency | Browser support |
|---|---|---|---|
| JPG | Baseline | No | Universal |
| PNG | Often much larger for photos | Yes | Universal |
| WebP | About 25–35% smaller | Yes | All current browsers |
| AVIF | Often around 50% smaller | Yes | All current browsers (Safari 16+) |
Savings vary with the image. Photos with lots of fine detail compress less, while smooth gradients and skies compress more. The only way to know is to try. Our compressor shows the exact size of every result, and you can tap a thumbnail to compare quality side by side.
Don’t forget the dimensions
A perfectly compressed 4000-pixel photo is still far too big for a 800-pixel-wide blog column. Resize to roughly the largest size it will be displayed at (or twice that for sharp high-DPI screens), then compress.
Serving modern formats with a fallback
If you need to support very old browsers, use the HTML <picture> element: list an AVIF source, then WebP, then a JPG <img> as the fallback. Each browser downloads only the first format it supports.