What Is WebP and Should You Use It?

WebP is an image format built specifically for delivering pictures over the web. It supports lossy and lossless compression, transparency, and animation, all in one container.

How much smaller is it, really

For photographs, expect 25 to 35 percent smaller files than JPEG at comparable perceived quality. For flat graphics saved losslessly, expect roughly 20 to 25 percent smaller than PNG. The gains are largest on images with smooth areas and soft gradients, and smallest on heavily textured content.

On a page carrying a dozen images, that difference is often several hundred kilobytes, which is measurable on a mobile connection.

The transparency advantage

This is the underrated part. Before WebP, an image needing a transparent background had to be PNG, even when the content was photographic and PNG was a terrible fit. Lossy WebP supports an alpha channel, so a product photo cut out from its background can be a fraction of the PNG size.

Where WebP still falls short

• Some desktop applications and older office software will not open the file.
• A few email clients render nothing, which matters for newsletters.
• Certain older content management systems block the upload entirely.
• Print workflows generally expect TIFF or high-quality JPEG.

How to adopt it safely

Serve WebP through the HTML picture element with a JPEG or PNG source as the fallback, and browsers that cannot display it will quietly use the other file. If your platform handles format negotiation for you, simply uploading WebP is enough.

Keep your originals. WebP files you generate are derivatives; if a better format arrives in three years, you want to re-export from the source rather than from an already lossy copy.