WebP Converter

Why WebP exists

WebP was designed to replace both JPEG and PNG with one format. It offers lossy compression typically 25 to 35 percent smaller than JPEG at equivalent visual quality, lossless compression around 26 percent smaller than PNG, and an alpha channel in both modes. That last point matters: before WebP you had to choose between transparency and efficient photographic compression.

Support is no longer a concern

Every current browser supports WebP, including Safari since version 14. The remaining gaps are old software rather than old browsers: some desktop image editors, some email clients and older content management systems still refuse it. For a website there is no practical compatibility argument left. For an image someone might download and open in an arbitrary application, JPEG is still the safer handoff.

Lossy or lossless

Use lossy for photographs, at quality around 80. Use lossless for screenshots, logos and anything with sharp edges or text, where lossy compression produces the same fringing JPEG does. WebP supporting both is the whole point of the format; choosing the wrong mode discards its advantage.

Converting from WebP

Going back to JPEG or PNG is sometimes necessary for a tool that will not accept WebP. Converting a lossy WebP to JPEG re-encodes lossy content as lossy, compounding the loss, so do it from the original where you still have one. Converting to PNG avoids further loss but produces a much larger file.

AVIF is the next step

AVIF typically halves JPEG again and beats WebP by a further 20 to 30 percent. Encoding is noticeably slower and support is slightly narrower. Serving AVIF with a WebP fallback through a picture element is the current best practice where image weight genuinely matters.