WebP vs JPG vs PNG: which should you use?

Choose for the image and its destination

Use JPG for photos when the receiving app or upload form requires JPEG. It uses lossy compression and does not support transparency. A lower quality setting can reduce size but may create visible blocks or blurred edges.

Use PNG for lossless graphics, screenshots and transparent images when preserving crisp pixels matters. Photographs stored as PNG can be large. Reducing PNG dimensions changes pixels; lossless encoding does not make resizing lossless.

Try WebP for website images when your publishing workflow accepts it. The format supports transparency and both lossy and lossless compression. This tool's adjustable WebP output is lossy, so compare the result rather than assuming that a format change is visually identical.

Compare fairly

1. Keep the same original source for every export. Comparing different images cannot tell you which format works best for your file.
2. Use the same pixel dimensions for the first comparison. Otherwise resizing and format conversion are mixed together.
3. Export JPG or WebP at a trial quality, then inspect at 100% output size. Equal slider numbers across formats do not guarantee equal visual quality.
4. Compare the actual byte sizes at a quality you find acceptable. Download and open the result in the destination app before committing to a format.

A measured example you can reproduce

Our synthetic 1600 × 1000 landscape starts as a 679,014-byte JPEG. Exporting it in Chrome as WebP at quality 82 produced a 225,226-byte file, about 67% smaller, without changing dimensions. Both files are available on the homepage so you can inspect them and try other settings.

This example is a format conversion using lossy encoding, not proof of identical pixels or a universal 67% saving. An already compressed WebP or a simple PNG graphic can behave very differently. Browser encoders can also produce different results.

Check compatibility before switching

Modern major browsers support WebP, but the upload form, email workflow or editing software you use may impose its own file-format rules. Follow those requirements first.

Keep original source files for future edits. This compressor handles static images; it rejects animated files rather than exporting only their first frame. Changing the filename extension alone does not convert a file.