Compare AVIF, WebP, and JPEG XL image formats in detail. Learn which next-gen format delivers the best compression, quality, browser support, and features for your web projects.
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Images account for nearly half of the total bytes on the average web page. Choosing the right image format directly affects page load speed, bandwidth costs, Core Web Vitals scores, and ultimately search rankings. The three formats competing to replace JPEG and PNG -- AVIF, WebP, and JPEG XL -- each bring distinct advantages and trade-offs that developers and content creators need to understand.
WebP, created by Google, has been the de facto next-gen format for several years. AVIF, derived from the AV1 video codec, pushes compression efficiency even further. JPEG XL, designed from the ground up as a universal image codec, offers unique features that neither WebP nor AVIF can match -- but its browser support took a controversial detour.
This guide compares all three formats across the metrics that matter most: file size, visual quality, encoding speed, feature support, and real-world compatibility. If you are looking for practical guidance on choosing between traditional formats, the best image format for web and SEO post covers JPEG, PNG, WebP, and SVG in the context of web optimization.
| Feature | AVIF | WebP | JPEG XL |
|---|---|---|---|
| Based On | AV1 video codec | VP8 (lossy) / custom (lossless) | Standalone codec (Google + Cloudinary) |
| Year Finalized | 2019 | 2010 (lossy), 2018 (v2) | 2022 |
| Lossy Compression | Excellent (best-in-class) | Good | Excellent |
| Lossless Compression | Good | Good | Excellent (best-in-class) |
| Max Resolution | 8193 x 4320 (per tile, tileable) | 16383 x 16383 | Virtually unlimited (2^30 x 2^30) |
| Max Bit Depth | 12-bit | 8-bit | 32-bit (float) |
| HDR Support | Yes (PQ, HLG) | No | Yes (PQ, HLG, full gamut) |
| Transparency (Alpha) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Animation | Yes (sequence of frames) | Yes | Yes |
| Progressive Decode | No | No | Yes (native) |
| Lossless JPEG Recompression | No | No | Yes (bit-exact roundtrip) |
| Encoding Speed | Slow | Fast | Fast-Moderate |
| Decoding Speed | Moderate | Fast | Fast |
| Chrome Support | Yes (Chrome 85+) | Yes (Chrome 32+) | Removed (was behind flag) |
| Firefox Support | Yes (Firefox 93+) | Yes (Firefox 65+) | No (support removed) |
| Safari Support | Yes (Safari 16.4+) | Yes (Safari 14+) | Yes (Safari 17+) |
| Edge Support | Yes | Yes | No |
Google released WebP in 2010 as a direct replacement for JPEG and PNG on the web. It offers roughly 25-35% smaller file sizes than JPEG at equivalent quality for lossy images, and 26% smaller files than PNG for lossless images. These are meaningful savings that translate directly into faster page loads.
WebP's biggest advantage is ubiquity. Every major browser supports it. Every major CMS and image CDN supports it. Every major image editing tool can export it. The ecosystem is mature, well-tested, and reliable. When someone asks "what format should I use for web images," WebP is the safe, proven answer.
The WebP converter on ConvertIntoMP4 handles batch conversion from JPEG, PNG, GIF, and other formats, preserving transparency where applicable.
Despite its widespread adoption, WebP has clear technical limitations:
Pro Tip: WebP supports animation as a replacement for GIF. Animated WebP files are typically 60-90% smaller than equivalent GIFs while supporting 24-bit color and alpha transparency. If you are still using GIFs, converting them to animated WebP is one of the easiest performance wins available.
WebP remains the best default choice for web images when you need maximum compatibility with good compression. It works everywhere, tooling is mature, and the compression improvement over JPEG is substantial enough to justify the format switch. For teams that want a single format that covers all browsers without fallbacks, WebP is it.
AVIF (AV1 Image File Format) applies the compression technology from the AV1 video codec to still images. The result is striking: AVIF consistently produces files 20-50% smaller than WebP and 50-70% smaller than JPEG at equivalent perceptual quality. At low bitrates -- where file size savings matter most -- AVIF's advantage over WebP grows even larger.
This compression edge comes from AV1's sophisticated prediction and transform algorithms, which were designed for 4K and 8K video content. These same algorithms excel at finding and eliminating redundancy in photographic images.
The AVIF converter allows you to convert JPEG, PNG, and WebP images to AVIF with adjustable quality settings.
Beyond raw compression, AVIF brings capabilities that WebP lacks:
AVIF's primary weakness is encoding speed. Because it inherits the computational complexity of AV1, encoding AVIF images is significantly slower than encoding WebP or JPEG. A single high-resolution AVIF image might take several seconds to encode on a modern CPU, compared to milliseconds for JPEG.
This matters for:
Decoding speed is more reasonable -- modern browsers decode AVIF efficiently, and hardware decode support is growing through AV1 decode acceleration in newer GPUs and mobile SoCs.
Pro Tip: When using AVIF for web delivery, set the encoding speed/effort parameter to a moderate value rather than maximum quality. The difference in file size between effort level 4 and effort level 10 is often only 5-10%, but the encoding time difference can be 10x or more.
AVIF images are internally divided into tiles, with each tile having a maximum dimension of 8193 x 4320 pixels. For images larger than this, multiple tiles are combined. While this works, it can introduce visible artifacts at tile boundaries in lossy mode, particularly at aggressive compression levels. Most web images fit within a single tile, so this limitation rarely matters in practice.
JPEG XL (JXL) was developed as a universal image codec intended to replace JPEG, PNG, GIF, and even TIFF in a single format. It combines the best ideas from Google's PIK codec and Cloudinary's FUIF codec, resulting in a technically sophisticated format with an impressive feature list.
Key JPEG XL capabilities:
JPEG XL's story took a dramatic turn in 2022 when Google removed experimental JPEG XL support from Chrome, citing insufficient ecosystem interest. This decision was controversial -- many developers and photographers protested that the format deserved a chance to prove itself. Mozilla followed by not implementing support in Firefox.
As of early 2026, browser support for JPEG XL stands at:
This effectively limits JPEG XL's use as a web delivery format. It remains excellent for professional photography workflows, archival, and applications where you control the viewing software, but it cannot serve as a universal web format today.
Despite limited browser support, JPEG XL has clear advantages in specific scenarios:
This table shows typical file sizes for a 1920x1080 photographic image encoded at three quality targets. Results are normalized against the original JPEG file size.
| Quality Target | JPEG (Baseline) | WebP (Lossy) | AVIF (Lossy) | JPEG XL (Lossy) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| High (SSIM ~0.98) | 100% (850 KB) | 72% (612 KB) | 52% (442 KB) | 58% (493 KB) |
| Medium (SSIM ~0.95) | 100% (420 KB) | 68% (286 KB) | 45% (189 KB) | 50% (210 KB) |
| Low (SSIM ~0.90) | 100% (180 KB) | 65% (117 KB) | 40% (72 KB) | 48% (86 KB) |
| Lossless | 100% (2.8 MB PNG) | 74% (2.07 MB) | 78% (2.18 MB) | 68% (1.90 MB) |
Key observations from these benchmarks:
Pro Tip: For e-commerce product photos where detail matters, encode at a higher quality target (SSIM 0.97+) and let the format do the heavy lifting on compression. AVIF at quality 80 typically produces better results than JPEG at quality 95, at half the file size. Use the image compressor for quick optimization.
All three next-gen formats support transparency (alpha channels), but the implementation quality varies:
WebP supports 8-bit alpha in both lossy and lossless modes. The lossy alpha channel uses a separate lossless compression, which means transparent WebP files are slightly larger relative to opaque ones than you might expect.
AVIF supports alpha channels compressed with the same lossy or lossless codec as the main image. This typically results in better compression for images with complex transparency (like product photos with shadows).
JPEG XL supports up to 32-bit alpha channels and can handle premultiplied and straight alpha modes. Its alpha compression is highly efficient.
For web developers replacing PNG files that use transparency, all three formats offer substantial file size reductions. The image converter page lists all supported format conversions.
WebP animation is mature and well-supported. It uses a frame-by-frame approach similar to GIF but with full 24-bit color, alpha transparency, and VP8 compression. Animated WebP files are dramatically smaller than GIFs.
AVIF animation leverages AV1's inter-frame prediction, which can find similarities between consecutive frames much more efficiently than WebP's approach. For animations with gradual changes (like cinemagraphs or subtle motion graphics), AVIF animation can be 30-50% smaller than animated WebP.
JPEG XL supports animation with frame-level progressive decoding. Each frame can begin displaying before it finishes downloading. This is a unique capability among the three formats.
The most robust approach for serving next-gen images on the web is the HTML <picture> element, which lets browsers choose the best supported format:
<picture>
<source srcset="image.avif" type="image/avif" />
<source srcset="image.webp" type="image/webp" />
<img src="image.jpg" alt="Description" width="800" height="600" />
</picture>
This serves AVIF to browsers that support it (best compression), WebP to those that support WebP but not AVIF, and JPEG as a universal fallback. The browser downloads only one image, so there is no bandwidth penalty for providing multiple options.
Most modern CDNs (Cloudflare, Fastly, AWS CloudFront) and image optimization services (Cloudinary, imgix, Vercel Image Optimization) can automatically serve the best format based on the browser's Accept header. This eliminates the need for manual <picture> markup:
This approach simplifies your codebase while delivering optimal performance to every visitor.
If you manage a blog, e-commerce site, or content-heavy website, the format choice affects your workflow:
next/image component.Image format choice directly affects three Core Web Vitals metrics:
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): Smaller image files load faster, which directly improves LCP for pages where the hero image is the largest element. Switching from JPEG to AVIF can improve LCP by 200-500ms on mobile connections.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): All three formats support embedded dimension metadata, which allows browsers to reserve the correct space before the image loads. Always include width and height attributes on your <img> tags regardless of format.
Interaction to Next Paint (INP): Large images that decode on the main thread can block interactions. AVIF's slower decode speed can potentially affect INP on low-powered devices. WebP's fast decode makes it safer for image-heavy pages where interaction responsiveness matters.
For a complete guide to image optimization and SEO, see how to optimize images for your website.
Pro Tip: Test your page's Core Web Vitals before and after switching image formats using Google PageSpeed Insights. The difference is often more dramatic on mobile, where network speeds are lower and CPU power is limited. Focus on your LCP image first -- switching that single image to AVIF can produce the biggest measurable improvement.
The most common workflow is converting existing JPEG and PNG images to WebP or AVIF for web delivery. Key considerations:
Use the AVIF converter for AVIF output, the WebP converter for WebP output, or the JPG converter if you need to convert back to JPEG for compatibility.
For large image libraries, batch conversion is essential. The how to batch convert files guide covers strategies for converting hundreds or thousands of images efficiently, including command-line tools and API-based approaches.
Technically yes, if you serve JPEG or WebP fallbacks for older browsers. In practice, AVIF's slow encoding speed makes it impractical for dynamic images (user-uploaded content processed in real time). For static marketing images, hero banners, and product photos that are encoded once and served many times, AVIF is an excellent choice.
Yes. WebP has near-universal browser support and fast encoding, making it the better choice as a single-format strategy. AVIF is the better choice when you can afford to serve multiple formats with fallbacks. Many sites use WebP as the primary format and AVIF as a progressive enhancement for browsers that support it.
As of early 2026, there is no indication that Google plans to re-add JPEG XL support to Chrome. The Chromium team's position is that AVIF and WebP cover the web's needs. This could change if there is significant market pressure (for example, if a major platform adopts JPEG XL exclusively), but it seems unlikely in the near term.
Only if you are serving those images to users and bandwidth savings justify the effort. For images stored as archives or backups, keep the originals. For images served on a website, generating AVIF and WebP variants alongside the original JPEG is the recommended approach. If you want to reduce storage of existing JPEGs without any quality loss, JPEG XL's lossless recompression is the only format that can do this.
Image formats do not directly affect accessibility -- alt text, contrast, and semantic markup do. However, faster-loading images improve the experience for users on slow connections or assistive technologies that render page content. Using efficient formats contributes to a faster, more accessible web.
Pro Tip: When converting images in bulk, automate the process using the ConvertIntoMP4 API or a build-time image optimization plugin. Manual conversion does not scale beyond a few dozen images. See the optimize images for website guide for workflow automation strategies.
The image format landscape is still evolving. AVIF adoption continues to grow as encoding speeds improve through hardware acceleration and optimized software encoders. WebP has reached saturation -- it is supported everywhere and will remain a reliable choice for years to come.
JPEG XL's future depends on whether browser vendors reconsider their position. Apple's support in Safari keeps the format viable for certain use cases, and there is an active community pushing for broader adoption. The lossless JPEG recompression capability alone gives JPEG XL a unique value proposition that no other format can match.
For web developers building sites today, the pragmatic approach is to serve AVIF with WebP and JPEG fallbacks using the <picture> element or CDN-based format negotiation. This strategy delivers the best compression to the majority of visitors while maintaining compatibility for everyone else. The what is WebP format post provides additional background on WebP's capabilities and history.
Michael Rodriguez
Video production expert covering codec standards, streaming formats, and professional post-production pipelines.