Convert Images to WebP Format (And Why You Should)

Convert to WebP

Drop your PNG or JPEG images below. Adjust quality to balance size and fidelity. Everything runs locally in your browser.

Default quality produces excellent results. Expect 25-35% file size reduction over JPEG with no visible difference.

The Numbers

These are representative figures. Your results vary by content, but the relative ordering is consistent across virtually all real-world images.

Why WebP Beats JPEG

JPEG was standardised in 1992. Great for its time, but compression science has moved on substantially.

WebP’s lossy encoder uses intra-prediction (predicting pixel values from neighbouring blocks) before compressing the residual — the same approach modern video codecs use. At quality settings where JPEG starts showing visible block artefacts (quality 60-70), WebP at equivalent visual quality produces files 30-40% smaller. At higher quality (80-90), the gap narrows to 20-25%, but it is always there.

WebP also handles transparency. If you currently maintain both JPEG (photos) and PNG (transparency), WebP consolidates to one format.

Why WebP Beats PNG

PNG’s DEFLATE compression is general-purpose and old. WebP lossless mode uses image-specific predictive transforms — colour transforms, subtract-green transforms, locally palette-aware encoding — that exploit the structure of image data specifically.

Result: lossless files consistently 20-26% smaller than equivalent PNGs. For a documentation site with hundreds of screenshots, that is gigabytes of bandwidth saved per month.

When NOT to Use WebP

Print and archival. Print workflows may not support WebP. Long-term archival guarantees are not as established as TIFF. Stick with TIFF or PNG for print.

Maximum compression needed. AVIF produces smaller files than WebP, particularly for photos. If your audience’s browsers support AVIF (93%+) and you are optimising aggressively, use AVIF as primary with WebP fallback.

Email campaigns. Some email clients still do not render WebP. Test thoroughly or use JPEG/PNG for HTML emails.

Favicons. ICO and SVG remain standard. WebP savings at 16x16 or 32x32 are negligible, and compatibility with older browsers is not guaranteed.

Repeatedly edited files. Keep working files in PSD, TIFF, or PNG. Convert to WebP as the final production export.

Implementation Options

The picture element

Serve WebP to supporting browsers, fall back to JPEG/PNG for the rest:

<picture>
  <source srcset="photo.webp" type="image/webp" />
  <source srcset="photo.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
  <img src="photo.jpg" alt="A description of the photo" />
</picture>

Browsers evaluate <source> elements in order and use the first supported format. The <img> tag is the ultimate fallback.

CDN-based conversion

Cloudflare, Fastly, AWS CloudFront (with Lambda@Edge), Imgix, and Cloudinary can convert images to WebP on the fly based on the client’s Accept header. Upload originals in JPEG/PNG; the CDN serves WebP automatically. No markup changes, no maintaining multiple files.

Build-time conversion

Astro, Next.js, and Nuxt all have built-in or plugin-based image optimisation that generates WebP variants at build time. Full control over per-image quality settings, no runtime conversion cost.

WordPress

Native WebP upload support since version 5.8. Plugins like ShortPixel, Imagify, and EWWW Image Optimizer batch-convert existing media libraries and serve WebP automatically.

Bulk Conversion

Small batches. Our WebP Converter supports drag-and-drop batch conversion in the browser.

Large batches. Google’s cwebp command-line tool, or libvips / sharp (Node.js) for significantly faster processing.

Automated. Integrate WebP conversion into your CI/CD pipeline so every committed image is automatically optimised.

Start Converting

Convert your largest images first for the biggest wins. Our WebP Converter handles it in the browser, and for further compression, pair it with our Image Compressor. Your users notice faster load times even if they never notice the format change.