JPG vs PNG vs WebP: Which Should You Use?
What each image format is actually good at, and how to pick without guessing.
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All three are just ways of storing the same thing - a grid of pixels - but they make very different tradeoffs about file size, quality, and what they support. Picking wrong usually shows up as either a bloated page or a photo that looks blocky where it shouldn't.
JPG: photos, not graphics
JPG uses lossy compression tuned for photographs - it throws away detail the eye is less sensitive to, which works well on real-world photos with lots of color gradients. It has no transparency support and compresses flat colors, sharp edges, and text badly, which is why a screenshot saved as JPG often looks smudged around text.
PNG: transparency and sharp edges
PNG is lossless - nothing is thrown away, so a screenshot, logo, or icon stays crisp, and it supports real transparency. The tradeoff is size: a PNG of an actual photograph is usually several times larger than the same photo as a JPG, for no visible quality gain.
WebP: usually the better default now
WebP supports both lossy and lossless compression plus transparency in one format, and at the same visual quality it typically produces smaller files than either JPG or PNG. Every modern browser supports it. The main reason to still use JPG or PNG is compatibility with older software or a workflow that specifically expects one of them - not quality or size.
The short version
- A photo, for the web: WebP if nothing downstream requires JPG; otherwise JPG.
- A screenshot, logo, or graphic with transparency: PNG, or WebP if you don't need older-browser support.
- Uploading somewhere that only accepts JPG: convert with WebP to JPG or PNG to JPG, depending on what you're starting from.
- Something needs a PNG specifically: JPG to PNG changes the container, not the quality already lost when it was saved as JPG.
Common questions
Does converting JPG to WebP lose quality? Converting a lossy JPG to lossy WebP re-compresses it, so there is some quality loss, the same as re-saving a JPG at a lower quality setting - it is usually not visible at normal viewing sizes, but it is not lossless the way converting to PNG would be.
Can I go back from WebP to JPG? Yes - not every tool or platform accepts WebP yet, which is the main reason to convert back.
Which one is actually smallest? It depends on the image, but for a typical photo, WebP usually beats JPG at the same visual quality, and both beat PNG by a wide margin.