How to choose between AVIF, WebP, JPEG, and PNG

Start with the picture, not the acronym

UI chrome, logos, screenshots with type: PNG (or lossless WebP) so edges stay sharp and alpha survives.

Photographs: JPEG is the compatibility default. WebP is a strong web default. AVIF often wins on bytes when encode and decode both exist.

What we tested

The image converter checks canvas.toDataURL for each output type in the current browser. On a desktop Chromium build used during development, JPEG, PNG, and WebP encoded. AVIF encode is treated as optional and disabled when the check fails. That is the rule the UI follows; it is not a claim about every Safari version.

A 1200×800 photograph was exported at quality 0.8 in JPEG and WebP. WebP was smaller in that single test. One test is not a leaderboard. Re-run on your image.

A simple policy for a website

Masters: PNG for graphics, original camera files for photos.

Delivery: <picture> with AVIF then WebP then JPEG if you have a build step that can encode AVIF reliably. If you only have a browser tab, export WebP or JPEG from ConvertPass and measure.

Limitations

Email clients and some CMS still reject AVIF and even WebP. HEIC is not a web delivery format. GIF animation is not preserved through canvas.