What advantages does WebP have over PNG and JPG?

Currently, images still account for a significant portion of network traffic, especially on mobile devices. Therefore, reducing image size without compromising visual quality is crucial for saving bandwidth and battery power.

However, optimization for common image formats like JPEG, PNG, and GIF has nearly reached its limits. In 2010, Google introduced a new image compression format—WebP—opening new possibilities for image optimization.

WebP provides both lossless and lossy compression for web images, with support for transparency in lossy mode. Official experiments show: lossless WebP reduces file size by 26% compared to PNG; lossy WebP reduces size by 25%–34% compared to JPEG at the same SSIM (Structural Similarity Index); lossy WebP also supports transparency, typically occupying about one-third the size of equivalent PNGs.

In 2014, Google further introduced animated WebP, extending the format to support animations. Compared to GIF, animated WebP supports richer colors while occupying less space, making it more suitable for mobile network playback.

Major internet companies worldwide have gradually adopted WebP. Tech blog GigaOM reported that YouTube saw a 10% improvement in webpage load speed after switching video thumbnails to WebP. The Google Play Store saved several terabytes of bandwidth daily, reducing average page load time by about one-third. The Google mobile app marketplace saved 50TB of storage space daily after adopting WebP. In 2014, Tencent News client reduced peak bandwidth by 9GB after implementing WebP, while average image latency and data download latency decreased by 100ms without affecting network connection delay. In the same year, QQ Space's decorations fully converted to WebP, resulting in significant bandwidth savings (though it's said they've since switched to SharpP format…).

WebP's advantage lies in its superior image data compression algorithm, delivering smaller file sizes with imperceptible quality differences. It supports both lossless and lossy compression, alpha transparency, and animation, achieving excellent, stable, and consistent conversion results for both JPEG and PNG formats.