PNG vs JPG vs WebP: Which Image Format to Use

Quick comparison

Why PNG screenshots look better than JPG ones

JPEG divides an image into 8×8 blocks and discards high-frequency detail. Photographs have soft gradients, so the loss is invisible. Screenshots have hard edges — text, borders, single-pixel lines — which are pure high frequency, so JPEG produces visible halos and coloured fringes. PNG stores those edges exactly.

The reverse is also true: a photograph saved as PNG is often five to ten times larger than the JPEG equivalent, because lossless compression cannot exploit the eye's tolerance for detail loss.

Where WebP fits

• Lossy WebP is roughly 25–35% smaller than JPEG at matched quality
• Lossless WebP is roughly 20–26% smaller than PNG
• It supports alpha transparency in both modes — something JPEG cannot do
• It handles animation, replacing GIF at a fraction of the size
• Every current browser supports it; only very old clients need a JPEG or PNG fallback

And AVIF?

AVIF compresses better again — often 20–40% below WebP — and handles wide colour and HDR. The cost is encoding time, which can be seconds per image, so it suits build-time optimisation rather than on-the-fly conversion. Serve AVIF first with WebP as the fallback where your tooling supports it.

A simple decision guide

1. 1Is it a logo, icon or diagram? Use SVG.
2. 2Does it need transparency? Use WebP, or PNG for maximum compatibility.
3. 3Is it a screenshot or flat-colour graphic with text? Use PNG or lossless WebP.
4. 4Is it a photograph? Use WebP at quality 80, with JPEG as a fallback.
5. 5Is it animated? Use animated WebP, not GIF.

Common mistakes