What Is AVIF? The Next-Gen Image Format Explained

What Is AVIF?

AVIF (AV1 Image File Format) is a modern image format based on the AV1 video codec, developed by the Alliance for Open Media. Released as a specification in February 2019, AVIF delivers significantly smaller file sizes than JPEG and WebP while maintaining equivalent or superior visual quality. The format supports both lossy and lossless compression, HDR imagery, wide color gamuts (up to 12-bit color depth), and transparency — making it one of the most versatile image formats available today.

At its core, AVIF leverages the same compression techniques used in AV1 video encoding. Each image is essentially a single keyframe of an AV1 video stream. This means AVIF benefits from years of investment in video compression research by companies including Google, Netflix, Amazon, Apple, and Mozilla.

How AVIF Compares to Other Image Formats

Understanding where AVIF fits requires comparing it against the formats it aims to replace.

AVIF vs JPEG

JPEG has been the web’s dominant image format since the mid-1990s. While it remains universally supported, JPEG shows its age in several ways. AVIF files are typically 50% smaller than JPEG at equivalent visual quality, according to studies by Netflix and other AV1 contributors. AVIF also eliminates the blocky artifacts that JPEG produces at lower quality settings, instead producing smoother degradation patterns that are less visually distracting.

If you need to convert between these formats, you can use our AVIF to JPG converter or work with AVIF files directly.

AVIF vs WebP

WebP, developed by Google and released in 2010, was the first serious challenger to JPEG dominance. AVIF generally produces files 20-30% smaller than WebP at equivalent quality levels. WebP has broader browser support since it arrived earlier, but AVIF support has expanded rapidly since 2022. For new projects in 2026, AVIF is the stronger choice for lossy compression scenarios.

AVIF vs PNG

PNG excels at lossless compression for images with sharp edges, text, and transparency — use cases where JPEG falls short. AVIF supports lossless compression as well, though its primary advantage lies in lossy compression. For photographs with transparency, AVIF produces dramatically smaller files than PNG. Our AVIF to PNG converter handles cases where you need PNG output for compatibility.

Browser Support in 2026

AVIF enjoys wide browser support as of 2026. Chrome added AVIF support in version 85 (August 2020), Firefox followed in version 93 (October 2021), and Safari added support in version 16.1 (October 2022). This means all major desktop and mobile browsers now handle AVIF natively. According to Can I Use data, AVIF support covers over 95% of global web users.

The remaining edge cases involve older devices and specialized browsers. For those situations, the standard approach is to use the HTML <picture> element with AVIF as the primary source and JPEG or WebP as fallbacks:

<picture>
  <source srcset="image.avif" type="image/avif" />
  <source srcset="image.webp" type="image/webp" />
  <img src="image.jpg" alt="Description" />
</picture>

When to Use AVIF

AVIF is ideal for photographs and complex images on the web, where file size directly impacts load times and Core Web Vitals scores. E-commerce product images, hero banners, editorial photography, and social media thumbnails all benefit from AVIF’s compression efficiency.

However, there are scenarios where AVIF may not be the best choice. Encoding AVIF images is computationally expensive — roughly 10 times slower than JPEG encoding. For real-time image processing or applications that generate thousands of images on the fly, this encoding cost matters. Additionally, very simple graphics like logos and icons are better served by SVG, and screenshots with large areas of identical pixels may compress more efficiently with PNG.

If you want to convert your PNG images to AVIF to take advantage of smaller file sizes, try our PNG to AVIF converter. For optimizing images you already have, our image compression tool can reduce file sizes without changing formats.

AVIF Technical Details

AVIF supports a range of technical capabilities that set it apart:

• Color depth: Up to 12 bits per channel (JPEG supports only 8 bits)
• Color spaces: sRGB, Display P3, Rec. 2020, and more
• HDR support: PQ and HLG transfer functions for high dynamic range
• Alpha channel: Full transparency support, unlike JPEG
• Animation: Sequence of frames, similar to animated GIF but with vastly better compression
• Tiling: Large images can be divided into independently decodable tiles
• Film grain synthesis: Preserves and reconstructs film grain efficiently

The File Size Advantage in Practice

Real-world benchmarks consistently demonstrate AVIF’s compression superiority. A typical 1920x1080 photograph at visually comparable quality might weigh 200KB as JPEG, 150KB as WebP, and 100KB as AVIF. Over an entire website with dozens of images, those savings compound into meaningful improvements in page load time, bandwidth consumption, and hosting costs.

For sites concerned with Core Web Vitals — Google’s page experience metrics that influence search rankings — switching to AVIF can directly improve Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) scores by reducing the transfer size of hero images and above-the-fold content.

Getting Started with AVIF

Converting your existing images to AVIF is straightforward. You can use our browser-based tools to convert images without uploading them to any server — all processing happens locally on your device. Start with the AVIF to PNG converter if you need to work with AVIF files you have received, or explore our full suite of image conversion tools for other format combinations.

For developers integrating AVIF into build pipelines, tools like Sharp (Node.js), libavif (C), and Squoosh (browser-based) provide programmatic conversion capabilities. Most modern CDNs, including Cloudflare and Fastly, also offer automatic AVIF conversion through content negotiation.