Is WebP better than PNG?
For images on a website, usually, because a WebP is smaller and keeps transparency just as a PNG does. Google's WebP overview puts lossless WebP images 26 percent smaller than PNGs. And WebP has a second mode that PNG lacks, lossy compression with a transparent background, which suits photos and soft-edged graphics far better than a lossless file of either kind.
PNG's strengths are elsewhere. It opens in every piece of image software made in decades, it holds more precision per pixel, and it is the safer master copy for anything you will edit again.
WebP and PNG side by side
| Compared on | WebP | PNG |
|---|---|---|
| Compression | Lossless or lossy | Lossless only |
| Size, lossless | 26 percent smaller, per Google's WebP overview | Larger |
| Transparency | Yes, in lossless and lossy files | Yes |
| Animation | Yes | Yes, as APNG, part of the W3C's PNG standard since its third edition in 2025 |
| Precision | 8 bits per color channel | Up to 16 bits per color channel |
| Largest image | 16,383 pixels on a side | No practical limit |
| Opens in | Every current browser and most current software | Everything |
Which should you use for a logo or an icon?
On a website, lossless WebP or PNG: both keep the hard edges of a logo exact and its background transparent, and the WebP is usually the smaller file. Outside the web, in a document, a slide deck or a file for a printer or a designer, PNG, because it opens everywhere.
Lossy WebP is tempting for logos because it is so much smaller, but at low quality it can soften flat edges and shift flat colors slightly. Check it at full size, and keep lossless for anything with small text.
For the logo and icons in a site's own header, SVG is often better than either, because a vector shape stays sharp at every size and zoom level. The SVG optimizer trims one down before it goes on the page.
Which should you use for photos with transparency?
Usually WebP. A cut-out product photo or a portrait with a soft transparent edge is still a photograph, which PNG can only store losslessly and therefore heavily. Lossy WebP keeps the transparent background and compresses the photograph itself the way JPEG would, so the file is typically a fraction of the PNG's size.
Remove white background saves a cut-out as PNG or WebP directly, and the PNG to WebP converter converts the cut-outs you already have.
Does converting between WebP and PNG lose anything?
Converting a PNG to WebP compresses it at the quality you set on the slider, and transparent areas stay transparent. Converting back with the WebP to PNG converter keeps whatever the WebP holds, but cannot restore detail that a lossy WebP discarded.
One subtlety applies in both directions. Browsers hold each color multiplied by its transparency while they work, so a pixel that is only partly transparent can come back with a slightly different color, even though its transparency is kept exactly.
How do you decide for a particular image?
Measure it. Compare image formats encodes your own image as PNG, WebP and the rest in your browser and shows the size of each, which answers the question for that picture rather than for an average one.