Format comparison

WebP vs GIF

GIF is older than the web itself. It is limited to 256 colours, compresses poorly and supports only on/off transparency, yet it remains everywhere because of animation. WebP does everything GIF does, better and smaller.

Side by side

WebP vs GIF: feature comparison

Criterion	GIF	WebP
Released	1987	2010
Colours	256 per frame	16.7 million
Transparency	1-bit	8-bit alpha
Animation	Yes	Yes
Still image size	Baseline	60–90% smaller
Animation size	Baseline	50–70% smaller
Browser support	100%	97%+

Still images: no contest

Any static GIF can be converted to WebP with better colour, smoother transparency and a dramatically smaller file. GIF's palette limitation produces visible dithering on photos and gradients; WebP renders them faithfully. Convert your still GIFs with our GIF to WebP converter.

Animations

Animated WebP encodes each frame with real image compression and stores only the differences between frames. Google reports 64% smaller files than GIF for lossy animated WebP and 19% smaller for lossless. Browsers decode animated WebP natively, and it is accepted by most CMSs. For clips longer than a few seconds, an MP4 or WebM video with autoplay muted loop playsinline is smaller still and easier on batteries.

How to create animated WebP

Browser-based converters (including this one) handle stills only, because the canvas API exposes a single frame. For animation, use Google's gif2webp command-line tool, ffmpeg (-c:v libwebp), or export directly from After Effects, Photoshop or Figma plugins.

Compatibility

GIF works absolutely everywhere, including 25-year-old email clients. WebP works in 97%+ of browsers and all modern apps. If a GIF must also render in Outlook or on legacy devices, keep a GIF fallback; otherwise WebP is the better default.

Try it on your own images

Convert a file to WebP in your browser and compare the size yourself. Free, no upload.

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Frequently asked questions

Yes, typically 50–70% smaller for the same animation, with full 24-bit colour instead of 256 colours.

All modern browsers can, including Safari since version 14. Older email clients may not.

For clips longer than a few seconds, yes. A muted, looping MP4/WebM is usually 5–10× smaller than an animated GIF and decodes in hardware.

More comparisons

WebP vs PNG

Use PNG as a working/source format and WebP for everything you publish. WebP lossless is ~26% smaller than PNG; WebP lossy with alpha is typically 60–80% smaller with no visible difference. Only serve PNG when a platform explicitly requires it.

WebP vs JPEG

WebP wins for the web. It produces 25–35% smaller files than JPEG at equal visual quality, supports transparency and animation, and is displayed natively by 97%+ of browsers. Keep JPEG only as a fallback for legacy clients or when a platform does not accept WebP.