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

Choosing the wrong image format is one of the most common reasons a website is slow or an upload is rejected. The three formats you will meet most often each have a clear job.

JPG (JPEG): best for photographs

JPG uses lossy compression: it throws away detail that the eye is unlikely to notice. For photos this works very well, and you can choose the trade-off between quality and file size. Quality settings between 70 and 85 usually look identical to the original on screen.

• No transparency.
• Each re-save loses a little more quality — keep an original copy.
• Poor for text, logos and screenshots: sharp edges get fuzzy halos.

PNG: best for graphics, logos and screenshots

PNG uses lossless compression: the image comes back exactly as it was saved. It supports transparency, which is why logos are usually PNG. The downside is size — a photo saved as PNG can be five to ten times larger than the same photo as JPG.

WebP: the modern all-rounder

WebP was designed for the web and supports both lossy and lossless compression, plus transparency. A lossy WebP is typically around 25–35% smaller than a JPG of similar visual quality. All current major browsers support it.

The catch is outside the browser: some older software, printers and government upload portals do not accept WebP. Use it for websites, not for official forms.

Quick decision table

A real example from our own work

When we rebuilt this website, the original portfolio screenshots and logo were large PNG files — about 10 MB in total. Converting them to WebP at a sensible width brought the same images down to under 200 KB, with no visible difference on screen. Pages load noticeably faster on mobile data as a result.