JPG vs PNG vs WebP: which image format should you use?
Three formats cover almost everything you’ll ever need on the web: JPG, PNG and WebP. Picking the right one is the single biggest lever on how small — and how good — your images turn out. Here’s how to choose without needing a design degree.
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JPG (or JPEG): the everyday photo format
JPG is the format your phone camera and most websites reach for by default, and for good reason. It uses lossy compression, which means it throws away detail your eye is unlikely to notice in exchange for dramatically smaller files. For photographs — anything with soft gradients, skin tones, landscapes, or lots of colour — JPG gives you the best size-to-quality trade-off of the three classic options.
The catch: JPG cannot store transparency, and because it’s lossy, re-saving the same JPG over and over slowly degrades it. It’s also weak on sharp edges — text, logos and line art can look fuzzy or develop faint “halos.”
- Use JPG for: photographs, realistic images, anything you’re emailing or posting where a solid background is fine.
- Avoid JPG for: logos, screenshots of text, or anything needing a transparent background.
PNG: the sharp-edges and transparency format
PNG uses lossless compression — it preserves every pixel exactly. That makes it perfect for images with crisp edges and flat colour: logos, icons, screenshots, diagrams, and anything with text. It also supports transparency, so you can place a logo on any background.
The downside is file size. For a full-colour photograph, a PNG can be five to ten times larger than the equivalent JPG, with no visible quality benefit. Using PNG for photos is one of the most common reasons websites end up slow and bloated.
- Use PNG for: logos, icons, screenshots, graphics with text, and anything needing transparency.
- Avoid PNG for: ordinary photographs — you’ll pay a big size penalty for quality you can’t see.
WebP: the modern all-rounder
WebP is the newer format built specifically for the web, and it’s the quiet winner in most cases. It can do both lossy compression (like JPG) and lossless with transparency (like PNG), and at the same visual quality it’s typically 25–35% smaller than a JPG and far smaller than a PNG. Every modern browser — Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge — supports it.
The only real reason to avoid WebP is compatibility with very old software or systems that predate it (some ancient email clients or legacy tools). For anything going on a website in 2026, WebP is usually the smartest default.
- Use WebP for: almost everything on a website — photos and graphics alike — when you want the smallest files.
- Fall back to JPG/PNG when: you need maximum compatibility with older tools.
The 10-second rule
If you remember nothing else:
- It’s a photo → JPG, or WebP for a smaller file.
- It has text, sharp edges, or transparency → PNG, or WebP for a smaller file.
- It’s going on a website and you want it fast → WebP.
You don’t have to commit forever, either — converting between formats takes seconds. Drop an image into Packfinch, choose your output format, and compare the file sizes side by side before you decide.