The Real Difference Between JPG, PNG, and WEBP (And When to Use Each)

If you spend any time working with images, you eventually hit the moment where you have to pick a format and you're not 100% sure why. JPG is smaller but PNG looks sharper? PNG has transparency but WEBP is even smaller and also has transparency? Someone said "never use JPG for logos" but you can't remember why?

Here's the short version, followed by the actual reasoning so you can make good calls in edge cases.

The one-line rules

• JPG — photos, and anywhere you need broad compatibility. Small files, imperceptible quality loss at 80–90%, no transparency.
• PNG — anything with sharp edges, text, or transparency. Larger files, but pixel-perfect.
• WEBP — the modern default for websites. Smaller than JPG for photos, smaller than PNG for graphics, supports transparency. Every current browser supports it.

You can switch between all three in the browser with Image Converter. Under the hood it's all just re-encoding — you're not gaining or losing anything except file size and the specific compromises each format makes.

JPG: the workhorse for photographs

JPG uses lossy compression. It throws away data that human eyes are bad at noticing — subtle color variations, high-frequency detail in busy areas — and squeezes what's left. On a photograph this is basically invisible up to about quality 80. Above 90 you're paying for bytes you can't see; below 60 you start noticing block artifacts, especially on smooth gradients like sky.

Where JPG genuinely fails is anywhere with sharp geometry: logos, text, screenshots of UIs, line drawings. The compression treats sharp edges as noise and blurs them into a soft halo. This is why the internet used to be full of JPG screenshots that looked like they were photographed through a jar of Vaseline.

JPG doesn't support transparency at all. If you save a transparent PNG as JPG, the transparent pixels get flattened to white (or whatever your background color is).

PNG: when every pixel matters

PNG is lossless. Save a PNG, open it, save it again — the pixels are byte-for-byte identical. That's a big deal for graphics with sharp edges, because there's no compression halo, no color banding, no soft mush around your logo's serifs.

PNG also supports full alpha transparency, which is the technical way of saying you can have partly-transparent pixels — for soft shadows, feathered edges, glass effects. GIF only supports on/off transparency (a pixel is either 100% visible or 100% invisible), which is why PNG replaced it for basically every use case that wasn't animation.

The trade-off is size. A photo saved as PNG is typically 5–10x larger than the same photo as JPG at 85% quality. For the human eye, the extra bytes buy nothing. For a solid-color logo or a screenshot of a code editor, those same bytes buy you crisp pixels.

WEBP: the format that quietly won

WEBP is Google's image format from 2010 that finally got universal browser support around 2020. It does both lossy and lossless compression, supports transparency, and — the interesting part — is meaningfully smaller than JPG or PNG at the same visual quality. Rough numbers from Google's original comparison: about 25–35% smaller than JPG for photos, and 25% smaller than PNG for graphics.

Every modern browser has supported WEBP since around 2020. macOS Preview handles it, Windows 11 handles it, iOS and Android render it inline. The main compatibility holes now are ancient email clients and some print workflows. For the web, WEBP is essentially the default — WordPress, Cloudflare, and every modern CDN will happily serve WEBP variants automatically.

The one place I'd still hesitate is when you're handing an image to a partner who'll open it in an older desktop tool. Send JPG or PNG in that case; convert to WEBP for your own web use via Image Converter.

Concrete rules for common jobs

Photos on a website

WEBP at quality 80. If your CMS won't take WEBP, JPG at quality 82. Then run it through Compress Image if the file is still bigger than 300 KB.

Logos and icons

SVG if you have the source (infinitely scalable, tiny file). Otherwise PNG with transparency, or lossless WEBP. Never JPG — the edges of a JPG logo will look like they've been photographed on a rainy morning.

Screenshots of UIs, code, documents

PNG or lossless WEBP. JPG will smear the text and add a halo around every icon edge. If file size is a problem, compress the PNG with a lossy PNG tool rather than switching to JPG.

Product photos with transparent backgrounds

PNG for maximum compatibility, WEBP for web-only use. If you started with a JPG and need transparency, you first need to remove the background, then export the result as PNG or WEBP — a JPG can't hold transparent pixels no matter how hard you try.

Images for email

JPG or PNG. WEBP support in email clients is still spotty — Outlook in particular. Not worth the risk for a marketing send.

The pattern to remember

Content type drives format. Photos want JPG or WEBP because lossy compression is a good deal on real-world imagery. Graphics with sharp edges want PNG or lossless WEBP because those same edges are what JPG destroys. Transparency needs PNG or WEBP because JPG doesn't support it. WEBP wins on file size against both, so it's the modern default anywhere it's supported.

Convert freely between all three — there's no meaningful accuracy loss going from PNG to WEBP (both lossless) or from JPG to WEBP (both lossy, comparable settings). Just don't go from PNG to JPG and back; you lose transparency and eat a small quality hit each round trip.