JPG vs PNG vs WebP: Which Image Format Should You Use?

Pick the wrong image format and you can easily pay a 5x file size penalty for zero benefit. Pick the right one and your pages load faster, your emails stop bouncing, and your screenshots stay crisp. Here's a practical, number-driven comparison of the three formats that cover ~99% of everyday use cases.

The 30-second answer

• Photographs for the web → WebP (25–35% smaller than JPG at equal quality)
• Photographs for email/word docs/old software → JPG (universally compatible)
• Screenshots, logos, graphics with text → PNG (lossless, sharp edges, transparency)
• Simple images needing transparency on the web → WebP or PNG
• Never: photographs saved as PNG (huge files, no benefit)

JPG (JPEG): the compatibility king

JPEG has been around since 1992 and opens literally everywhere — every browser, email client, phone, printer driver and 20-year-old accounting app. It uses lossy compression tuned for photographs: smooth gradients and natural textures compress beautifully, but sharp edges and text get blocky artifacts. A typical 12-megapixel phone photo (around 4 MB) compresses to roughly 350–500 KB as a quality-80 JPEG.

JPEG has one significant gap: no transparency. Any transparent area becomes a solid color (usually white) when you convert to JPEG. So logos and icons on non-white backgrounds must stay in PNG or WebP.

PNG: lossless, sharp, and expensive

PNG compresses losslessly — what goes in is pixel-identical to what comes out. That's exactly what you want for screenshots (text stays readable), logos, diagrams and anything with transparency. The cost is size. That same 4 MB phone photo saved as PNG? Expect 8–12 MB. PNG is the right tool for graphics, and the wrong tool for photos.

WebP: the modern default

WebP, released by Google in 2010, does both lossy and lossless compression and supports transparency — it genuinely covers JPEG's and PNG's jobs. Lossy WebP at quality 80 is typically 25–35% smaller than equivalent JPEG; lossless WebP is usually about 25% smaller than PNG. Browser support reached 100% of modern browsers years ago, including Safari since 2020. For anything that renders in a browser, WebP is the default answer in 2026.

Side-by-side comparison

• Compression: JPG lossy only · PNG lossless only · WebP both
• Transparency: JPG no · PNG yes · WebP yes
• Photos: JPG good · PNG terrible · WebP best
• Screenshots/text: JPG poor · PNG best · WebP good
• Compatibility: JPG universal · PNG universal · WebP all modern browsers
• Relative photo size: WebP ≈ 0.7x · JPG 1x · PNG 3–5x

What about AVIF?

AVIF compresses even better than WebP (another 10–20%) and modern browsers support it. The catches are slower encoding and patchier support in image editors and CMS pipelines. If you're optimizing hard, AVIF is worth testing; for most people, WebP is the pragmatic sweet spot of size, speed and tooling.

Converting between formats

Converting is easy and, done right, free. Our Image Converter turns PNG into WebP or JPG (and back) in seconds, entirely in your browser — batch conversion included. If you're converting photos to JPG or WebP, set the quality slider to around 80 and check the file size; you can then fine-tune with the Image Compressor. A common workflow: receive a huge photographic PNG from a designer, convert to WebP, compress at 80, and ship a file 10–20x smaller.

A simple decision rule

Ask three questions: Is it a photograph? Does it need transparency? Where will it be displayed? Photograph + web = WebP. Photograph + email/legacy = JPG. Graphics + text or transparency = PNG (or WebP if it's for the browser). Follow that rule and you'll never ship a 6 MB screenshot or a smeared, artifacted logo again.