WebP vs AVIF vs JPEG: which image format should you use in 2026
Why the format you pick still matters
Even with fast connections everywhere, the format an image is saved in still changes how it looks and how large it is. A page full of oversized JPEGs loads slower and looks worse than the same page using a modern format at a sensible quality setting. Picking well takes a few seconds and pays off every time the page loads, since the same image can be a very different number of bytes depending on nothing more than the format and setting it was exported with.
WebP: the sensible default
For most images going on a website, WebP is the right first choice. It typically produces smaller files than JPEG at a comparable visual quality, supports both lossy and lossless compression, and is supported by every current major browser. Unless there’s a specific reason to reach for something else, WebP is a safe default for photos, illustrations, and everything in between.
AVIF: the smallest files, if you can wait
AVIF usually beats WebP on file size for the same visual quality, sometimes by a wide margin. The tradeoff is encoding time: AVIF is the most computationally expensive of the common web formats, so producing one — especially from a large photo — takes noticeably longer than WebP or JPEG. That cost only happens once, while preparing the image; viewing an AVIF file in a browser afterward is just as fast as any other format, and browser support for AVIF is essentially universal at this point, so compatibility isn’t the concern it was a couple of years ago.
JPEG and PNG: when the older formats still win
JPEG remains the safest choice for compatibility. Old email clients, printers, and design tools that haven’t caught up with newer formats can all still open it without issue. PNG doesn’t compress photos as efficiently as any format above, but it’s lossless and supports transparency, which makes it the right pick for screenshots, logos, icons, and anything with flat colors or text that needs to stay perfectly crisp.
Which format should I pick?
- Photos for a website, in general: WebP.
- Smallest possible file size, and encoding time isn’t a concern: AVIF.
- Sending a file to something old or unpredictable: JPEG.
- Logos, screenshots, icons, or anything needing transparency: PNG.
What the quality setting actually means
The quality slider on an encoder isn’t a percentage of the original file — it tells the encoder how hard to compress. For ordinary photos, a setting around 70–80 is the sweet spot: it looks visually identical to the source on a normal screen while cutting the file size well below what a higher setting would produce. Pushing it higher mostly adds file size with no visible improvement; going much lower starts to show up as blur or blocky artifacts, especially around sharp edges and text.
Resizing matters as much as format
Format and quality aren’t the only levers worth pulling. An image displayed at 800 pixels wide on a page doesn’t need to stay a 4000-pixel photo straight from a camera or a design file. Scaling an oversized image down before compressing it often saves more than switching formats does, since roughly half the pixels means roughly half the data, regardless of which format encodes them. Worth checking the actual display size an image needs before worrying about which format to export it in.
Trying it yourself
The easiest way to see the difference is to compress the same photo as WebP, AVIF, and JPEG and compare the results side by side. Our image compressor does exactly that — drop in a photo, switch the output format, and use the before/after compare view to check quality at different settings, all without uploading the file anywhere. If you’re curious why “without uploading” matters beyond convenience, we cover that separately.