WebP vs JPG vs PNG: Which Image Format Should You Use?
By the UtilityNest team · · 4 min read
You are putting together a page for your small bakery's website. The cake photo you exported is 6 MB and loads like it is 2009. The logo, saved as JPG, sits on the pink header inside a white rectangle. And the image you saved from a supplier's site turned out to be a .webp that your design app refuses to open.
Three different headaches, one cause: each image is in a format that is wrong for its job. JPG, PNG and WebP are not better or worse than each other in general. Each one is good at something specific.
The short version: JPG for photos you share anywhere. PNG for screenshots, logos, text and anything that needs a transparent background. WebP for images on your own website, where smaller files make pages load faster. When an app will not take a WebP, convert it to JPG or PNG.
The three formats at a glance
| JPG | PNG | WebP | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Compression | Lossy | Lossless | Lossy or lossless |
| Transparency | No | Yes | Yes |
| Animation | No | Not in standard PNG | Yes |
| Best at | Photos | Screenshots, logos, text | Website images |
| Opens everywhere? | Yes | Yes | All modern browsers; some apps and forms still refuse |
A worked example: one photo, three formats
Take the cake photo, resized to 1600 x 1067 pixels for the website. Saved three ways, the sizes typically land in this ballpark:
- PNG: around 2.5 to 3 MB. Every pixel stored exactly, which a photo does not need.
- JPG at quality 85: a few hundred KB. Looks identical on screen.
- WebP at quality 80: usually another quarter or so smaller than the JPG, still identical to the eye.
Your exact numbers depend on the photo; a busy, detailed scene is always bigger than a plain one. The ranking, though, is very reliable for photos.
Cake photo as a 6 MB original, logo as JPG with a white box, a .webp your app cannot open.
Cake photo as a light WebP on the site, logo as a transparent PNG, supplier image converted to JPG.
JPG: the safe choice for photos
JPG throws away detail your eye is unlikely to notice, which makes photos small. At high quality the loss is invisible; at low quality you get blocky patches and fuzzy halos around edges.
Good: small photo files that open on every device, app, printer and upload form. Not so good: no transparency, and text or sharp lines look smudgy. Each edit-and-save recompresses the image a little more, so keep an original if you edit often.
PNG: exact pixels and transparency
PNG stores every pixel exactly, so screenshots, diagrams, icons and anything with text stay perfectly crisp. It also supports smooth transparency, which is why logos that sit on colored backgrounds are almost always PNGs.
The downside is size: a photo saved as PNG is huge. If you have a photo in PNG and do not need transparency, PNG to JPG usually shrinks it dramatically. You choose the color that replaces transparent areas, so logos do not turn black.
WebP: built for the web
Google designed WebP to make web pages lighter. It can be lossy like JPG or lossless like PNG, and supports transparency and animation. Files are usually 25 to 35% smaller than a JPG of similar quality. Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari all display it, which is why "Save image as" so often hands you a .webp.
Where it falls down is outside the browser: some older editors, office software versions, print shops and many government or job-portal upload forms still accept only JPG or PNG.
For website images, the biggest saving usually comes from dimensions, not format. A 4000-pixel photo shown in a 1200-pixel column wastes most of its bytes. In Convert to WebP, turn on Shrink large images and pick a size close to how big the image is actually shown, then set quality around 75 to 85.
A simple rule for every situation
- Photo to email, print or upload to a form: JPG.
- Screenshot, especially with text: PNG.
- Logo or icon on different backgrounds: PNG (or SVG if you have a vector version).
- Images on your own website: WebP.
- A downloaded .webp you need elsewhere: JPG for photos, PNG if it has transparency.
- A whole folder to convert: the Batch Image Converter does up to 200 at once.
All of these converters run in your browser, so your images stay on your device.
What about JPG to PNG, and AVIF?
Converting a JPG to PNG does not bring back detail that JPG already threw away; it just makes a bigger file. It is useful only when a program insists on PNG or you are about to edit the image many times.
AVIF is a newer format that often compresses even better than WebP and works in current browsers. It is a fine choice for websites whose tools support it. For files you send to other people, JPG and PNG remain the safe bets.
Quick answers
Is WebP better quality than JPG?
At the same file size it usually looks a little better; at the same quality it is usually smaller.
Why can't I open a WebP file?
Your app does not support it. Drag it into any browser window to view it, or convert it to JPG or PNG.
Does converting lose quality?
Converting to a lossless format (PNG) loses nothing more. Converting to JPG or lossy WebP re-encodes the image and loses a little, depending on the quality setting.