AVIF vs WebP vs JPEG XL: Next-Gen Image Formats Compared

The Next Generation of Image Formats Has Arrived

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.

Format Comparison at a Glance

WebP: The Established Challenger

A Decade of Web Optimization

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.

WebP's Limitations

Despite its widespread adoption, WebP has clear technical limitations:

• 8-bit color depth only. No support for 10-bit or 12-bit workflows, which limits its use for HDR content and professional photography.
• No progressive decoding. The entire file must download before the image can render, unlike progressive JPEG which shows a low-quality preview immediately.
• Moderate compression efficiency. AVIF and JPEG XL both outperform WebP in compression benchmarks, particularly at low bitrates.
• Maximum dimensions of 16383 x 16383. Sufficient for web use but limiting for very large images like maps or scanned documents.
• Lossy and lossless use different internal codecs. The lossy codec is based on VP8 and the lossless codec is a separate algorithm, which means the format's capabilities are somewhat fragmented.

When WebP Is the Right Choice

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: Maximum Compression

Compression That Outperforms Everything Else

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.

AVIF Feature Set

Beyond raw compression, AVIF brings capabilities that WebP lacks:

• 12-bit color depth for HDR and wide color gamut content
• HDR support with PQ (Perceptual Quantizer) and HLG (Hybrid Log-Gamma) transfer functions
• Film grain synthesis -- the encoder can strip film grain during compression and recreate it during decode, saving significant bits on grainy content
• Alpha channel with the same efficient compression applied to the transparency layer
• Sequence-based animation using AV1 frame sequences

The Encoding Speed Problem

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:

• Real-time image processing pipelines where latency is critical
• Bulk image conversion of large image libraries
• Server-side image optimization at scale, where CPU costs directly affect infrastructure expenses

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.

AVIF Tile Limitations

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: The Technical Marvel

Designed to Replace Everything

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:

• Lossless JPEG recompression. JPEG XL can losslessly recompress existing JPEG files, reducing their size by approximately 20% with a bit-exact roundtrip back to JPEG. This means you can save storage on existing JPEG libraries without any quality loss.
• Progressive decoding. JPEG XL renders a usable preview after downloading just a fraction of the file, similar to progressive JPEG but more efficient.
• 32-bit floating-point color. Full support for HDR, wide gamut, and scientific imaging.
• Ultra-high resolution. Maximum dimensions of 2^30 x 2^30 pixels, making it suitable for medical imaging, satellite imagery, and other specialized applications.
• Fast encoding and decoding. Unlike AVIF, JPEG XL was designed for speed. Its encoding and decoding performance is competitive with JPEG.

The Browser Support Controversy

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:

• Safari 17+ -- Apple added full support
• Chrome -- No support, removed from behind-flag
• Firefox -- No support
• Edge -- No support

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.

Where JPEG XL Shines

Despite limited browser support, JPEG XL has clear advantages in specific scenarios:

• Archival and photography. The lossless JPEG recompression feature alone makes it valuable for managing large JPEG libraries.
• Professional imaging. 32-bit float support and HDR capabilities exceed what AVIF and WebP offer.
• Print workflows. CMYK color space support makes it suitable for print production.
• Progressive loading on Safari. For Apple-ecosystem-focused websites, JPEG XL's progressive decode provides a superior user experience.

File Size Comparison at Different Quality Levels

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.

Key observations from these benchmarks:

• AVIF leads in lossy compression at every quality level, with the advantage growing at lower quality targets.
• JPEG XL leads in lossless compression, slightly beating WebP and notably outperforming AVIF.
• WebP offers a meaningful improvement over JPEG at all quality levels.
• The gap between AVIF and JPEG XL in lossy mode is relatively small (5-10%), with AVIF having a slight edge.

Feature Deep Dive: Transparency and Animation

Alpha Channel Support

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.

Animation Support

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.

Practical Implementation for Web Developers

The Picture Element Strategy

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.

CDN and Image Optimization Services

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:

1. Upload your source images in the highest quality format you have (TIFF, PNG, or high-quality JPEG).
2. Configure the CDN to auto-negotiate format based on browser support.
3. The CDN serves AVIF, WebP, or JPEG automatically.

This approach simplifies your codebase while delivering optimal performance to every visitor.

Content Management Systems

If you manage a blog, e-commerce site, or content-heavy website, the format choice affects your workflow:

• WordPress has supported WebP since version 5.8 and AVIF since version 6.5. Many plugins (ShortPixel, Imagify, EWWW) automatically generate WebP and AVIF variants.
• Next.js (which powers ConvertIntoMP4) has built-in Image Optimization that can serve AVIF and WebP automatically through the next/image component.
• Static site generators can use build-time image processing plugins to generate multiple formats.

SEO and Core Web Vitals Impact

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.

Converting Between Formats

From JPEG and PNG to Next-Gen Formats

The most common workflow is converting existing JPEG and PNG images to WebP or AVIF for web delivery. Key considerations:

• Always convert from the highest-quality source available. Converting a heavily compressed JPEG to AVIF will not recover quality -- it will just re-compress artifacts.
• Preserve originals. Keep your source files in their original format and generate next-gen variants as derivatives.
• Test quality settings visually. Automated quality metrics (SSIM, PSNR) are useful but imperfect. Always spot-check converted images to ensure important details are preserved.

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.

Batch Conversion Workflows

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.

Choosing the Right Format: Decision Guide

Use AVIF When:

• Maximum compression is the priority (bandwidth-sensitive applications)
• Your audience primarily uses modern browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari 16.4+)
• You have time for slower encoding (not real-time processing)
• You need HDR or wide color gamut support
• You are serving images through a CDN that handles format negotiation

Use WebP When:

• You need a single format that works in all modern browsers
• Encoding speed matters (real-time processing, server-side optimization at scale)
• Your images include transparency and you want smaller files than PNG
• You are replacing animated GIFs
• You want the safest, most battle-tested next-gen option

Use JPEG XL When:

• Your audience is primarily on Apple devices (Safari 17+)
• You need lossless JPEG recompression for archival
• Progressive decoding is important for your use case
• You are working in professional photography or print workflows
• You control the viewing software (desktop applications, not browsers)

Use JPEG/PNG When:

• You need absolute universal compatibility including legacy systems
• You are delivering images through platforms that do not support next-gen formats
• The images are very small (icons, small thumbnails) where format overhead negates compression gains

Common Questions About Next-Gen Image Formats

Can I use AVIF for all images on my site?

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.

Is WebP still worth using if AVIF is better?

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.

Will JPEG XL ever get Chrome support?

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.

Should I convert my existing JPEG library to a next-gen format?

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.

How do next-gen formats affect accessibility?

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.

The Future of Image Formats

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.