JPG vs PNG vs WebP: which should you use?
10 September 2026 · 7 min read
Most format arguments are longer than they need to be. Ninety per cent of real decisions come down to two questions: is it a photograph, and does it need a transparent background.
The short answer
| What you have | Use this | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A photograph, for the web | WebP | Same quality, 25–35% smaller |
| A photograph, going to anyone else | JPG | Opens everywhere, no questions |
| Logo, icon, or UI graphic | PNG | Crisp edges, transparency |
| Screenshot with text | PNG | JPG smears fine text |
| Anything needing transparency | PNG or WebP | JPG has no alpha channel |
| Print or archive master | TIFF | Lossless, high bit depth |
The one concept that explains all of it
Lossy formats throw away detail your eye is unlikely to miss, and get dramatically smaller files for it. Lossless formats keep every pixel exactly, and pay for it in size.
Photographs are full of gradual tonal variation, which lossy compression handles beautifully. Graphics are full of hard edges and flat colour, which lossy compression handles badly — it produces visible fuzz around the edges. That single distinction drives nearly every choice below.
JPG
Lossy. No transparency. Universally supported.
Thirty years old and still the default for photographs, because it does one job extremely well: compact photos that open on literally anything.
Use it for: photographs, client deliverables, email attachments, anything going into a system you don't control.
Avoid it for: logos, screenshots, text, line art, or anything needing a transparent background.
Watch out: JPG is lossy every time you save. Open, edit, re-save, repeat, and quality degrades permanently with each pass. Keep an untouched master and export JPGs from it.
PNG
Lossless. Full transparency. Universally supported.
PNG keeps every pixel perfect and supports a proper alpha channel, which makes it the right choice for anything with hard edges or a transparent background.
Use it for: logos, icons, UI assets, screenshots, diagrams, anything with text or sharp lines.
Avoid it for: photographs on the web. A photo saved as PNG is often five to ten times the size of the equivalent JPG with no visible benefit.
This is the single most common format mistake — a full-resolution PNG photograph loaded on a web page, quietly costing several megabytes. If that's you, convert it: it's the easiest page-speed win there is.
WebP
Lossy or lossless. Transparency. Supported in all modern browsers.
WebP is the modern all-rounder: it can behave like a JPG or like a PNG, and in both modes it's meaningfully smaller. For images on your own site it's close to a free win.
Use it for: images on websites you control.
Avoid it for: files you hand to other people. Plenty of software, portals and forms still won't take it — see what a WebP file is for the full picture.
And the others
TIFF — lossless, high bit depth, the standard for print and archival masters. Enormous files, and browsers can't display it natively. Keep it as a master and export JPG or WebP for delivery.
AVIF — newer and smaller again than WebP, with broad modern browser support. Encoding is slower and tooling is thinner, so WebP remains the safer default for now.
GIF — obsolete for still images. 256 colours and larger than PNG. Only animation keeps it alive, and even there WebP beats it.
HEIC — what iPhones shoot by default. Efficient, but poorly supported outside Apple's ecosystem. Convert to JPG before sending anywhere.
Decide in three questions
- Does it need transparency? → PNG (or WebP if it's for your own site).
- Is it a photograph? → WebP for your own site, JPG for everyone else.
- Is it text, a logo or a screenshot? → PNG.
That covers nearly everything. The rest is edge cases.
Convert between all of them
JPG, PNG and WebP in and out — plus TIFF, GIF, BMP and AVIF in. Runs in your browser.
Open the image converter →Four mistakes worth avoiding
- PNG photos on a web page. Huge files, zero benefit. Convert to JPG or WebP.
- JPG screenshots. Text goes soft and fuzzy. Use PNG.
- Re-saving JPGs repeatedly. Each save loses more. Work from a master.
- Sending WebP to clients. You've handed them a problem to solve. Send JPG.
Common questions
Is PNG better quality than JPG?
PNG is lossless, so it's a perfect reproduction — but "better quality" only shows up where lossy compression struggles: hard edges, flat colour, text. On a photograph, a high-quality JPG is visually indistinguishable at a fraction of the size.
Does converting PNG to JPG lose quality?
Some, technically, since JPG is lossy — but at a high quality setting it's not visible on a photograph. You'll also lose transparency, which becomes a white background. For photos the size saving is overwhelmingly worth it; for logos, stay on PNG.
Which format is smallest?
For photographs, generally AVIF, then WebP, then JPG, with PNG far behind. For flat graphics, lossless WebP usually edges out PNG. But the format matters less than the dimensions — resizing a 6000px image down does more than any format change.
What should I use for ecommerce product photos?
JPG at around 2000px on the long edge is the safe universal answer. Use WebP if your platform explicitly supports it. Keep every image the same dimensions so your product grid stays even.