Choosing the right image format is one of the simplest ways to speed up your website. The wrong choice can double your page weight, slow down load times, and hurt your search rankings. With four major contenders in 2026 — AVIF, WebP, JPEG, and PNG — the decision comes down to what you are optimizing for: file size, visual quality, transparency, or compatibility.
JPEG: The Reliable Standard
JPEG has been the default photo format on the web for three decades. It uses lossy compression, which means it discards some image data to achieve smaller file sizes. At quality settings around 75–85%, most photographs look indistinguishable from the original while being dramatically smaller.
Best for: photographs, hero images, and any situation where you need universal compatibility. Every browser, email client, and device on the planet renders JPEG correctly. The main drawback is that JPEG does not support transparency, and heavy compression introduces visible blocking artifacts around sharp edges.
PNG: Lossless with Transparency
PNG uses lossless compression, preserving every pixel exactly as it was. This makes PNG ideal for graphics that need crisp edges — logos, icons, screenshots, and illustrations. PNG also supports full alpha transparency, which lets you place images over any background without visible edges.
The trade-off is file size. A PNG photograph can be 5–10 times larger than its JPEG equivalent because lossless compression cannot discard visual information. Use PNG when you need transparency or pixel-perfect graphics, but switch to JPEG or WebP for photographs.
WebP: The Modern Middle Ground
Developed by Google, WebP supports both lossy and lossless compression plus transparency — combining the strengths of JPEG and PNG in a single format. Lossy WebP files are typically 25–35% smaller than JPEG at comparable visual quality. Lossless WebP beats PNG file sizes too.
Browser support for WebP reached over 97% globally by 2024, making it safe to use as your primary web format today. The only significant holdout is older Safari versions on pre-Big Sur macOS, which represent a shrinking share of traffic.
AVIF: The New Compression King
AVIF is built on the AV1 video codec and delivers the most impressive compression ratios of any current image format. At equivalent visual quality, AVIF files can be up to 50% smaller than JPEG and noticeably smaller than WebP. It supports transparency, wide color gamut, and HDR content.
The main trade-off is encoding speed. AVIF takes significantly longer to encode compared to WebP or JPEG, which can slow down batch processing or build pipelines. Browser support has grown quickly and now covers Chrome, Firefox, Safari 16+, and Edge — roughly 93% of global users as of early 2026.
Quick Comparison
- Smallest file size for photos: AVIF wins, then WebP, then JPEG
- Best transparency support: PNG (lossless) or WebP/AVIF (lossy with alpha)
- Widest browser support: JPEG and PNG are universal, WebP is near-universal, AVIF is growing fast
- Best for icons and logos: SVG for vectors, PNG for raster, ICO for favicons
- Best for screenshots and text: PNG preserves sharp text perfectly
Practical Recommendations
For most websites in 2026, the optimal strategy is to serve AVIF as your primary format with a WebP fallback and JPEG as the final fallback. The HTML <picture> element makes this straightforward — the browser will pick the first format it supports.
If you do not want to manage multiple formats, WebP is the safest single choice today. It offers excellent compression, transparency support, and near-universal browser coverage. Use PNG only when you need lossless quality for graphics, and keep JPEG as a fallback for email and legacy platforms.
All of these conversions can be done instantly and for free with QuickImg. Your images stay on your device and are never uploaded to any server — everything runs in your browser.