AVIF vs WebP vs JPEG: Which Image Format is Best for Your Website in 2026?
The Three Contenders
The question of which image format to use on your website has never had more viable options. In 2026, three formats dominate the conversation: JPEG, the longstanding universal standard; WebP, Google's modern alternative that has achieved near-universal browser support; and AVIF, the newest contender based on the AV1 video codec that promises the best compression available today.
Each format has distinct strengths and trade-offs. The right choice depends on your specific priorities — whether that's maximum compatibility, smallest possible file sizes, best visual quality, or fastest encoding speed. Let's break down exactly how they compare across every dimension that matters.
JPEG has been the standard photo format on the web since the mid-1990s. It uses DCT-based lossy compression and is supported by every browser, device, and application ever made. Its compression algorithms are well-understood and extremely fast.
WebP was developed by Google and released in 2010. It supports both lossy and lossless compression, transparency, and animation. WebP uses VP8-based compression for lossy mode and a custom algorithm for lossless mode, both of which outperform JPEG and PNG respectively.
AVIF is based on the AV1 video codec, developed by the Alliance for Open Media (a consortium including Google, Apple, Mozilla, Microsoft, Netflix, and Amazon). Released for image use in 2019, AVIF offers the most advanced compression available, supporting both lossy and lossless modes, transparency, HDR, and wide color gamut.
Compression and File Size
This is the category where the differences are most dramatic and measurable.
AVIF leads the pack with the best compression ratios available. In real-world testing, AVIF files are approximately 50% smaller than equivalent JPEG files at the same perceptual quality, and about 20% smaller than WebP. For a website serving thousands of images, these savings are transformative.
WebP falls in the middle, offering files that are approximately 25-34% smaller than equivalent JPEG files. Lossless WebP is about 26% smaller than lossless PNG. While not as aggressive as AVIF, WebP's compression is still a massive improvement over legacy formats.
JPEG produces the largest files of the three at equivalent quality. However, JPEG compression is extremely well-optimized after decades of development, and modern JPEG encoders like MozJPEG can close some of the gap with improved encoding algorithms.
Here's a rough comparison for a typical high-quality photograph:
These numbers scale proportionally with image resolution. For a 4K hero image, the savings could mean the difference between a 500 KB JPEG and a 250 KB AVIF, which has a meaningful impact on page load times, especially on mobile connections.
Image Quality Comparison
Raw file size only tells part of the story. What really matters is the visual quality you get at a given file size.
AVIF excels at low bitrates, maintaining impressive visual quality even at aggressive compression levels. Where JPEG and WebP start showing visible artifacts — blocking, color banding, loss of fine detail — AVIF continues to produce clean, natural-looking images. This advantage is especially pronounced in photographs with smooth gradients, skin tones, and areas of subtle color variation.
WebP offers a balanced quality profile. Its lossy compression produces fewer artifacts than JPEG at the same file size, with particularly good performance on sharp edges and fine textures. WebP avoids the characteristic "blockiness" of JPEG at lower quality settings, instead producing smoother degradation patterns that are less visually distracting.
JPEG remains a solid performer for high-quality output. At quality settings of 85% and above, modern JPEG encoders produce results that are difficult to distinguish from the source image. However, JPEG's quality degrades more noticeably than the other two formats as you push toward smaller file sizes. Below about 70% quality, JPEG artifacts become clearly visible, especially around high-contrast edges.
For practical purposes, all three formats produce images that are effectively indistinguishable from the original at their recommended quality settings. The key difference is that AVIF and WebP reach that "indistinguishable" threshold at smaller file sizes than JPEG.
Browser Support
Browser compatibility is crucial when choosing an image format for the web. Serving images that visitors can't display defeats the purpose of optimization.
JPEG: Universal support. Every web browser ever created supports JPEG. This is JPEG's single strongest advantage and the reason it remains relevant despite its age. Support level: 100% of global web traffic.
WebP: Near-universal support as of 2026. Chrome, Firefox, Safari (14.1+), Edge, Opera, and all Chromium-based browsers fully support WebP. The only browsers without support are legacy versions that represent a negligible fraction of traffic. Support level: approximately 97% of global web traffic.
AVIF: Strong and growing support. Chrome (85+), Firefox (93+), Opera (76+), and Samsung Internet all support AVIF. Safari added AVIF support in version 16.1 (released late 2022), which means all major browsers now handle AVIF. However, older Safari versions in active use on some devices do not support it. Support level: approximately 93% of global web traffic and growing.
The practical takeaway: WebP is safe to use as your primary format with a JPEG fallback. AVIF can be used as a progressive enhancement for browsers that support it, with WebP or JPEG as fallbacks.
Encoding and Decoding Speed
How quickly images can be compressed (encoding) and displayed (decoding) has real-world implications for both your workflow and user experience.
JPEG is the fastest to encode and decode. Its algorithms are simple, well-optimized, and have had decades of hardware and software optimization. JPEG encoding and decoding is essentially instantaneous on modern hardware.
WebP encoding is moderately fast — slower than JPEG but fast enough that it doesn't create bottlenecks in most workflows. Decoding speed is slightly slower than JPEG but still extremely fast and not perceptible to users. Modern browsers decode WebP images without any noticeable delay.
AVIF is significantly slower to encode than both JPEG and WebP. Depending on the encoder settings and image complexity, AVIF encoding can take 5 to 20 times longer than JPEG encoding. This is the trade-off for AVIF's superior compression. Decoding is also somewhat slower than WebP and JPEG, though modern browser implementations have optimized this significantly and the difference is rarely noticeable to end users.
For build-time image processing (generating optimized images during deployment), AVIF's slower encoding is usually acceptable since it happens once and the results are cached. For real-time or on-the-fly conversion, WebP or JPEG may be more practical due to their faster encoding speeds.
When to Use Each Format
Based on the data above, here are clear recommendations for when each format is the best choice:
Use AVIF for:
Use WebP as your default for:
Use JPEG for:
Our Recommendation
For most websites in 2026, here is the optimal image strategy:
Serve AVIF where supported, with WebP as the primary fallback, and JPEG as the universal safety net. The HTML picture element makes this easy to implement:
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If maintaining three versions of every image feels like too much complexity, WebP alone is an excellent default choice. With 97%+ browser support, strong compression, and fast encoding, WebP provides the best balance of performance and practicality for the vast majority of websites.
The bottom line: JPEG is no longer the best choice for web images, but it remains essential as a fallback. WebP should be your go-to format for most use cases. AVIF is the premium option for maximum compression when you can invest the extra effort in your image pipeline.
How to Convert Between Formats
PhotoFormatLab makes it easy to convert images between any of these formats. Whether you need to convert JPEG to WebP for your website, generate AVIF versions of your product photos, or convert AVIF back to JPEG for email newsletters, you can do it all directly in your browser with no uploads and no software installation.
Simply visit PhotoFormatLab.com, drag and drop your images, select your target format, adjust the quality settings, and download your converted files. The entire process takes seconds and your files never leave your device.