Due to their immense qualities, web designers and developers use AVIF and SVG image formats. Both formats offer high-quality images, support transparency and animation, and have other suitable technical attributes.
This article compares SVG vs. AVIF key differences and similarities regarding structure, file size, image quality, browser support, storage needs, compression, animation, transparency, and performance to help users understand which format best suits their design needs.
When is AVIF better than SVG?
AVIF images use the efficient AV1 video codec compression, resulting in smaller and higher-quality images, while SVG images support lossless compression, which retains all image data and results in larger but higher-quality but least responsive web-based images.
The AVIF format is ideal for making blogs, websites, digital art, photography portfolios, and graphic design. Its files load faster online, improving user experience.
When is SVG better than AVIF?
SVG images are scalable up and down but retain their high-quality and resolution levels, while AVIF images are pixel-based, making them indistinct or grainy with upward or downward scaling. The SVG files extension is better when creating professionally sharp and flexible app icons and interactive charts of different sizes, which promptly update in real-time.
The benefits of SVG images are that they can be easily edited using JavaScript and CSS and support interactivity, making them perfect for web-responsive designs such as high-resolution and high-quality animations and hyperlinks.
SVG versus AVIF Table Comparison
| Element | SVG | AVIF |
| Transparency | Supports transparency | Supports transparency |
| File Size | Larger files compared to AVIF files | Smaller files compared to SVG files. |
| Image Quality | High-quality images. | Excellent image quality than SVG. |
| Performance | Increased image loading times than AVIF. | Reduced image loading times compared to SVG. |
| Structure | Comprises the XML markup language with XML code. | Comprises nested boxes: File Type Box (ftyp) container, metadata, and actual image data. |
| Animation | Supports animation | Supports animations |
| Storage | Necessities more storage space than AVIF. | Necessitates less storage space than SVG. |
| Compression | Supports lossless compression | Support lossy and lossless compression |
| Browser Support | Supported by almost all web browsers | Limited browser support compared to SVG. |
Differences and similarities between AVIF and SVG images
The analysis of SVG versus AVIF exhibits structural differences in file size, image quality, storage, performance, lossy compression, structure, and browser support. The formats are identical in web browser, animation, and transparency support.
Transparency
AVIF and SVG file types support transparency. An AVIF image supports transparency through its alpha channels. The transparent backgrounds allow transparency data to be stored and supported alongside the lossy and lossless data. AVIF enables data transparency at different image levels and supports object representation in images with well-defined opacities.
Conversely, SVG files have the 'Default' transparent background, where features have names indicating their specific functions. That is, it is based on HML, which is integrally transparent. Therefore, its support for transparency permits designers to create transparent images easily embedded over other web elements.
File Size
AVIF files are comparatively smaller than SVG files. The SVG file format creates and stores images defined using mathematical equations rather than pixels, resulting in larger files than the raster-based AVIF files, which use the efficient AV1 video codec algorithms to reduce file sizes.
SVG’s formulas define and anchor images on grid lines, points, curves, and shapes, allowing them to be scaled up or down to fit any screen dimension. Besides, very complex photographs or images have no definite file size limits and can be significantly larger than AVIFs.
Image Quality
SVG and AVIF images are of high resolution. However, AVIF images have slightly higher quality than SVG images. AVIF supports 8-bit, 10-bit, and 12-bit color depths per channel, while an SVG file embedded in HTML supports 16777216 colors, but it defines and supports only 147 color names.
AVIF also supports multiple color sub-sampling formats, such as YUV 420 and YUV 444. Besides, it supports Wide Color Range (WCR), ICC profile, Rec 2020, sRGB, and Pro Photo RGB, in addition to the non-standard and standard color spaces, which SVG hardly supports.
Performance
SVG images are larger than AVIF images. Therefore, AVIF files load faster on websites, incur fewer bandwidth costs, and consume fewer bytes, enhancing the online user experience more than SVG files.
Structure
AVIF is a raster-based file format, while SVG is a vector graphic format—an SVG file extension stores images using mathematical formulas. The formulas define and anchor images on grid lines, shapes, curves, and points. SVG files have XML codes specifying all texts, colors, paths, and shapes and store and transfer digital data. Thus, SVG and AVIF structures are complex to compare (vector-based vs. raster-based).
In contrast, AVIF is structured in a classified form of nested boxes that store metadata and data. It has a File Type Box (ftyp) that is responsible for identifying the file and specifying the format version used at the top-lying container or box. The ftyp container comprises more boxes, such as the Item Properties Box (iprp), Item Location Box (iloc), and Media Data Box (mdat), with many metadata and accurate image data.
Animation
AVIF files support animation and live photos using their multilayer image storage sequence. The file format is compatible with HIEF, which enables image sequences and elements. Similarly, the SVG file extension has a markup that supports lively content and presents website animations. It is accessible from JavaScript, a feature allowing SVG files to support animation elements through scripting or CSS. SVG users can readily amend the appearance of its file extension on a webpage by tuning specific codes without creating another image file.
Storage
An AVIF file format encodes and stores data using lossy and lossless compression techniques. The image data and metadata under both methods are stored as compressed frames using AV1 codec encoding, resulting in smaller files than SVG.
The SVG file format is written in XML code and stores image information or text data as literal texts instead of shapes. SVG supports lossless image compression, preserving all image details, resulting in significantly larger files than lossy and lossless AVIF images.
AVIF files need less storage space than SVG files. However, both file formats store image data indefinitely based on the handling process, storage mediums, and conditions. SVG data can be stored in XML text and HTML documents, while AVIF data can be stored in Content Delivery Networks, Cloud, File Systems, Folders, and Hard Drives.
Compression
SVG uses lossless compression, while AVIF uses grander, lossless, and low-fidelity lossy compression techniques to create smaller, higher-quality images than SVG. AVIF’s lossy method compresses image data in sequences using the AV1 algorithm in a HEIF container format, deleting specific image data.
AVIF’s lossless compression sequentially compresses image information using the AV1 video codec, preserving all image data. Similarly, SVG images use lossless compression to minimize file size while maintaining image details, leading to higher quality retention but significantly larger file sizes than AVIF.
Browser Support
SVG and AVIF image file formats are new, popular, and widely embraced by designers and developers alike. They are used in output devices, web browsers, and graphic design programs. AVIF and SVG are widely supported and compatible with almost all browsers.
AVIF and SVG are compatible and supported by new and older web browsers such as Vivaldi, Firefox, Chrome, Discord, Edge, Opera, Apple Safari, and Brave. Samsung Internet also supports AVIF, which hardly supports SVG. Besides, neither format is supported by Internet Explorer.
Converting AVIF to SVG or SVG to AVIF
Use convertjack to convert AVIF to SVG promptly. People prefer SVG because it is detailed, high-quality, easily manipulated, and scalable upwards or downwards while ensuring image resolution levels.
Convertjack is similarly an efficient SVG to AVIF converter. It creates AVIF files that are comparatively smaller and need less storage space, consume fewer bytes, and are widely supported by most web browsers, allowing for their online exchange or interchanging.