PNG vs JPG vs WebP vs AVIF: The Complete Image Format Guide (2026)

Four formats cover the vast majority of raster images you'll ever save: PNG, JPG, WebP and AVIF. Each was designed to solve a different problem, and choosing well is the difference between a page that loads instantly and one that stalls, or between a logo with crisp transparent edges and one with an ugly white box behind it. This guide compares all four head-to-head on the things that actually matter (transparency, quality, file size and browser support) and gives you a clean way to decide, then convert.

The 30-second version

If you only remember one thing, remember this:

• JPG, photographs where you don't need transparency. Universal, small, good enough almost everywhere.
• PNG: logos, icons, screenshots, line art, and anything needing a transparent background or perfectly sharp text.
• WebP, the modern web default. Smaller than both JPG and PNG, supports transparency, and works in every current browser.
• AVIF, the smallest of all for photos, with the best quality-per-byte, but slower to encode and not supported everywhere yet.

The rest of this article explains why, and what to do at the edges where the answer isn't obvious.

How the four formats differ

The real distinctions come down to three questions: does it keep every pixel (lossless) or throw some away (lossy), can it store transparency, and how efficient is its compression?

JPG (JPEG) is lossy-only. It discards detail your eye is least likely to notice, which makes it tiny for photos, often a tenth the size of an equivalent PNG. It cannot store transparency, and pushing its quality slider too low creates blocky "artifacts," especially around text and hard edges. It's been the web's photo format for 30 years, which is exactly why everything opens it.

PNG is lossless. It records every pixel exactly, so screenshots of text stay razor-sharp and repeated edits never degrade. It supports a full alpha channel, so parts of the image can be transparent or semi-transparent. The price is size: faithful storage means big files, particularly for photographic content.

WebP, made by Google, does both. In lossy mode it beats JPG on size at similar quality. In lossless mode it beats PNG. And it supports transparency in both modes, which is what makes it a genuine one-format replacement for JPG and PNG at once.

AVIF, based on the AV1 video codec, is the newest and most efficient. It squeezes photos smaller than WebP at the same visual quality, handles transparency, and holds up better at very low bitrates (fewer of those blocky JPG artifacts). Its catch is practical: encoding is noticeably slower, and support, while now good, still trails the older formats.

The comparison table

Feature	JPG	PNG	WebP	AVIF
Compression	Lossy	Lossless	Lossy + lossless	Lossy + lossless
Transparency (alpha)	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Animation	No	No	Yes	Yes
Typical size vs JPG (photo)	Baseline	Much larger	~25–35% smaller	~40–50% smaller
Best for	Photos	Graphics, text, logos	Modern web delivery	Max compression, web
Encode speed	Fast	Fast	Fast	Slower
Browser support (2026)	Universal	Universal	All current browsers	All current major browsers
Legacy app support	Excellent	Excellent	Limited	Poor

A few honest caveats about this table. The size percentages are typical, not guaranteed, savings vary with the image and the quality setting you choose, and for flat graphics or already-small images the gap narrows. And "browser support" is not the same as "opens in every program": both WebP and especially AVIF still trip up some older desktop apps, email clients and enterprise systems.

Transparency: the deciding factor for graphics

If your image needs a transparent background (a logo that sits on different coloured sections, a product cut-out, a UI element) JPG is immediately out, because it simply can't store an alpha channel. Save a transparent design as JPG and the transparent areas fill in with solid colour (usually black or white).

That leaves PNG, WebP and AVIF. PNG is the safe, universal choice and the right one for a master file you'll keep editing. But if the graphic is going on the web and file size matters, WebP gives you the same transparency at a fraction of PNG's weight. If you have a transparent PNG that feels far too heavy, that's your cue to convert it, our WebP converter preserves the alpha channel while cutting the bytes, all in your browser.

Quality and file size: the photo story

For photographs, ignore PNG, it's lossless, so it stores a photo at several times the necessary size. The real contest is JPG vs WebP vs AVIF, and in pure efficiency the ranking is clear: AVIF is smallest, WebP is in the middle, JPG is largest for a given visual quality.

But smallest isn't automatically best. JPG still wins on universality and encode speed, which is why it's a sensible default for email attachments, documents and anything you're not sure the recipient can open. Rather than obsess over theory, the practical move is to run your real image through a tool and look at the actual numbers and the actual result. Our image compressor lets you dial in quality and watch the file size and preview update live, so you can find the point where the image still looks right but weighs far less.

Browser support in 2026, the honest status

• JPG and PNG: supported literally everywhere. Zero risk.
• WebP: supported in every current browser: Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari and their mobile versions. For web delivery, it's effectively safe.
• AVIF: now supported across all current major browsers, but adoption in the wider ecosystem (CMS plugins, design apps, older devices, third-party platforms) is still catching up.

The pragmatic rule: use WebP or AVIF as your delivery copies on the web, but always keep a PNG or JPG original as your source of truth, so you can regenerate or convert back the moment something can't open the newer format.

A decision checklist

Work down the list and stop at the first "yes":

1. Does it need transparency? Web use → WebP. A master file you'll re-edit → PNG.
2. Is it text, a logo, a screenshot or line art? → PNG keeps edges crisp. Export WebP for the web.
3. Is it a photo for the web and squeezing every byte matters? → AVIF (smallest), or WebP (great balance, faster, broader support).
4. Is it a photo you need to be certain opens anywhere, email, docs, a client's old software? → JPG.
5. Will you re-edit it many times? → Work in PNG so you don't stack up lossy generation loss, then export once at the end.

Converting between formats

Picking the right format is only useful if you can get there. All of these run entirely in your browser: nothing is uploaded, nothing is stored:

• Shrink a heavy graphic photo by converting PNG to JPG (you choose the background colour that replaces the transparency).
• Start an editing session cleanly by converting JPG to PNG so repeated saves don't degrade it.
• Ship smaller web images by converting to WebP, which also decodes WebP back to PNG or JPG when you need compatibility again.
• Reduce the weight of any format without changing it using the image compressor.

Specialists, not rivals

There is no single best format. There are specialists. JPG is the universal photo workhorse. PNG is the guardian of transparency and sharp edges. WebP is the modern web default that quietly beats both on size. AVIF is the efficiency champion for photos, once you're comfortable keeping a fallback. Name what your image is and where it's going, and the right format picks itself. Then it's a few seconds in the browser to convert. Try it on one of your own images and compare the result for yourself.

The formats this guide was tested against

Our conversion tools cover the practical core of this table in your browser: JPEG via MozJPEG, WebP via libwebp, PNG with an OxiPNG lossless pass, all as WASM with no upload. AVIF we currently support as input only (browsers decode it. Our tools read what your browser can), because in-tab AVIF encoding is still slow enough to make a poor tool. That gap is deliberate and disclosed. When it closes, this paragraph changes.

Sources

• Image file type and format guide (MDN Web Docs)
• AVIF image format support (caniuse.com)
• WebP image format support (caniuse.com)