WebP vs PNG vs JPG: Which Should You Use?

Choosing the right image format directly affects your page load speed, visual quality, and compatibility. Here’s a plain-English breakdown of when to use WebP, PNG, and JPEG.

The quick answer

	WebP	JPEG	PNG
Best for	Most web images	Photographs	Logos, screenshots, transparency
Lossy compression	Yes	Yes	No
Lossless compression	Yes	No	Yes
Transparency	Yes	No	Yes
Animation	Yes	No	No (use APNG)
File size	Smallest	Medium	Largest
Browser support	97%+	Universal	Universal

WebP wins on file size in almost every scenario. The main reason to choose JPEG or PNG over WebP is legacy tooling support or a specific workflow requirement.

JPEG: the old reliable

JPEG (or JPG — they’re the same format) has been the web’s primary photo format since the 1990s. It uses lossy compression: it permanently removes some image data to reduce file size, focusing on the detail the human eye is least sensitive to.

JPEG works well for:

Photographs with complex colour gradients
Images where some quality loss is acceptable
Maximum compatibility (every device and tool in existence reads JPEG)

JPEG falls short on:

Images with sharp edges, text, or flat colour — compression artefacts appear as blurry halos around edges
Transparency — JPEG has no alpha channel at all
Images you’ll edit repeatedly — each save re-encodes and degrades quality

A typical JPEG at quality 80 is a reasonable starting point for web photos. Going below 70 usually introduces visible artefacts.

PNG: lossless but heavy

PNG (Portable Network Graphics) was designed as an open alternative to the proprietary GIF format. It uses lossless compression, meaning every pixel is preserved exactly.

PNG works well for:

Logos, icons, and illustrations with flat colour
Screenshots and UI elements with text
Images that need a transparent background
Source files you’ll edit later

PNG falls short on:

Photographs — lossless compression doesn’t help much when the source is noisy; PNG files can be enormous
File size generally — for the same image, PNG is larger than JPEG and larger than lossless WebP

PNG-8 (256 colours) and PNG-24 (full colour) are the two main variants. PNG-8 is useful for simple graphics with few colours; PNG-24 handles the full colour range and full alpha transparency.

WebP: the modern default

WebP supports both lossy and lossless compression in the same format, plus a full alpha channel in both modes. Developed by Google and based on the VP8 video codec, it achieves substantially better compression than either JPEG or PNG.

WebP works well for:

Almost everything on the web
Photographs (lossy WebP at quality 80 ≈ JPEG at quality 90, with a ~30% smaller file)
Transparent images (smaller than PNG, unlike JPEG which has no transparency)
Animated images (substantially smaller than GIF)

WebP falls short on:

Legacy tools — some older design software and CMS platforms don’t accept WebP as input
Print workflows — WebP is RGB only; print uses CMYK
Browsers before ~2019 (but coverage is now above 97%)

File size comparison

Here’s a representative comparison for a typical 1200×800 photograph:

Format	Settings	File size
JPEG	Quality 90	~320 KB
JPEG	Quality 80	~200 KB
PNG (lossless)	—	~1.1 MB
WebP (lossy)	Quality 80	~145 KB
WebP (lossless)	—	~820 KB

Results vary significantly with image content, but WebP consistently delivers smaller lossy files than JPEG, and smaller lossless files than PNG.

Choosing a format: the decision tree

Does the image need transparency?
- Yes → use WebP (lossless if pixel-perfect, lossy if compression is OK), or PNG if WebP isn’t an option
- No → continue
Is this a photograph or complex image?
- Yes → lossy WebP. Fall back to JPEG if you need universal tool support.
- No → lossless WebP or PNG
Will this be edited repeatedly?
- Yes → keep the source as PNG or TIFF; export to WebP for the web
- No → WebP directly
Do you need to support very old browsers?
- Yes → serve WebP with a JPEG/PNG fallback using the <picture> element
- No → WebP alone is fine

Using multiple formats with `<picture>`

If you need to support the rare browser that doesn’t handle WebP, the <picture> element lets you offer the best format the browser can handle:

<picture>
  <source srcset="photo.webp" type="image/webp" />
  <img src="photo.jpg" alt="Description" />
</picture>

The browser picks the first source it supports. Modern browsers take the WebP; older ones fall back to JPEG automatically.

Convert your images

Try our free in-browser converters:

PNG to WebP — shrink PNGs without losing transparency
JPG to WebP — smaller photos, same visual quality
WebP to PNG — back to lossless for editing
WebP to JPG — maximum compatibility output