GIF and JPG are vital image formats similar or different in browser support, animation, transparency, structure, performance, storage, compression, file size, and image quality. Both formats use dissimilar methods to render images with faster loading or downloading times and file size.
The article describes the similarities and differences between the divergent methods used by GIF vs. JPG and offers guidelines on when each file format is most suitable.
When is JPG better than GIF?
JPG images use lossy compression and produce smaller and more web-responsive files than GIFs. GIF images are losslessly compressed using Lempel–Ziv–Welch algorithms, ensuring that all image data is preserved. This results in larger and less web-responsive files compared to JPGs.
Therefore, the jpg format is ideal for producing complex images without texts such as photographs and colorful images, as it results in better quality for the same file size, loads faster, and increases online user experience than GIFs.
When is GIF better than JPG?
GIF images support animation and transparency, while JPG images do not, making GIF the best choice for computer graphics with limited color palettes, including line art, simple cartoons, or logos.
The benefits of GIF images include lossless compression, which ensures the original image details are preserved; support animation via its multiple image sequences, hence offering material motion unlike static JPGs; and small and supports transparency but less sophisticated when creating animation.
GIF versus JPG Table Comparison
| Element | JPG | GIF |
| Transparency | Does not support transparency | Supports transparency |
| File Size | Smaller files than GIF files | Larger files than JPG files. |
| Image Quality | High-quality images than GIF images. | Limited color support and low-quality images than JPG images. |
| Performance | Smaller and loads faster than GIFs. | Larger and loads slower than JPGs. |
| Structure | Begins with binary value '0xFFD8', and ends with '0xFFD9'. | Starts with a header, screen descriptor, and color table blocks and ends with a trailer block. |
| Animation | Does not support animation | Supports animation. |
| Storage | 2.4 smaller and needs less storage space than GIFs. | 2.4 larger and needs more storage space than JPG. |
| Compression | Uses lossy compression with Huffman and DCT | Uses lossless compression with LZW algorithms. |
| Browser Support | Supported by nearly all web browsers. | Supported by most web browsers. |
Differences and similarities between JPG and GIF images
GIF and JPG are comparable raster graphics image formats in browser support. However, comparing GIF versus JPG reveals differences in file size, image quality, compression, storage, performance, transparency, animation support, and structure.
Transparency
GIF supports transparency, while JPG does not. The GIF89a format allows one of the palette colors to be designated as fully transparent, enabling simple transparency effects.
GIF images can include transparent backgrounds by designating one of the palette colors as fully transparent, allowing for simple transparency effects. This makes the images look more integrated into various backgrounds. In contrast, JPG images do not support transparency, so they cannot include transparent backgrounds.
File Size
The GIF file’s size limit should be below 2MB and 3MB. This is the maximum file size for any text documents or messages, implying that for a GIF file to be sent as a text message, it should be smaller than these limits. However, GIFs are considered to be 2.4 larger than JPG files.
While the JPG file extension supports a maximum image size of 65,535 x 65,535 pixels, which equals four gigapixels for the characteristic ratio 1:1, its lossy compression technique deletes unnecessary image details, resulting in significantly smaller files than GIF.
The larger GIF file sizes stem from the multiple images it supports. A single GIF file can be comparatively smaller than a JPG file, but multiple GIFs compound to make its files even larger than the 4G pixels JPG file. GFI87a, for instance, supports multiple images per stream, each having multiple blocks, with a 256-color palette, and every block is tailored to make a comprehensive image. Since all data for each image per stream is preserved during compression, its files are larger than JPG.
Image Quality
GIF is a low-quality file format that supports 8 bits per pixel and a limited color space of 256 indexed colors. Its bit depth allows a single GIF file to reference its palette of up to 256 various colors, making it ideal for simple computer graphics.
On the other hand, JPG is a high-quality file format that uses an 8-bit depth each for RGB values, totaling 24-bit color. The file format can record 256 (28) RGB levels, making it 16 million colors, including a full RGB spectrum suitable for complex graphics and photographs.
Performance
JPGs have smaller file sizes than GIFs, meaning they consume fewer bytes and require less bandwidth when transferred or shared on websites. This is because JPG uses lossy compression, which deletes some image information to reduce file size, resulting in faster loading times. In contrast, GIFs use lossless compression, retaining all original image data, which usually results in larger file sizes for complex images but can be efficient for simple graphics and animations
Structure
GIF and JPG are both raster graphics or bitmapped file formats, making them easier to compare structurally. JPG files consist of segments, each beginning with a marker that starts with 0xFF followed by a specific byte. The file begins with the SOI (Start of Image) marker 0xFFD8 and ends with the EOI (End of Image) marker 0xFFD9. Within the entropy-compressed data, a 0x00 byte is inserted after any 0xFF byte to prevent unintended markers, which decoders skip.
In contrast, a GIF file starts with a fixed-length header indicating the version (GIF87a or GIF89a). This is followed by the Logical Screen Descriptor, which provides information about the logical screen's dimensions and other display features, all specified in a fixed length.
Animation
JPG files do not support animation or animated images, but GIFs do, making them the preferred option for animation. GIF supports animation through GIF89a, which has specifications that add many enhancers to the GIF image file header, allowing browsers to show multiple GIF pictures in a looped series or scheduled sequence. However, the GIF mechanism only permits small, crude, or simple animations to be created.
Storage
GIF data are stored in an interlaced and compressed format. On the other hand, JPG data is stored as individual files but in a compressed format. The multiple GIF images stored in a single file can be comparatively larger, necessitating more storage than JPG images.
Lossless GIFs preserve all image details, making them larger than lossy JPG images. However, both formats store data longer depending on the handling process, storage mediums used, and conditions to which the files or images are subjected. They can be stored indefinitely in folders, file systems, Content Delivery Networks, hard drives, cloud, and floppy drives.
Compression
GIF uses lossless compression, while JPG supports lossy compression. GIF's lossless compression with the Lempel Ziv Welch (LZW) algorithms compresses image data, resulting in smaller, higher-quality images that preserve image-rich information. However, the resultant image is almost similar to the original image.
GIF lossless compression is a multi-prolonged image transformation process. GIF uses LZW algorithms to compress its images by altering color space, merging local palettes, spatially predicting pixels, and merging different pixels in one pixel. The Lempel Ziv Welch (LZW) compression algorithm exploits repetition in information streams to efficiently store simple graphical images while taking advantage of flat colors.
Browser Support
JPG and GIF image formats are extensively supported by almost all old and modern Browsers, including Vivaldi, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Microsoft Edge, Discord, Opera Mini, and Internet Explorer.
Besides, JPG and GIF enjoy universal support from social media platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), Pinterest, Myspace, and Snapchat. However, JPG is unsupported by Internet Explorer 6.
Converting JPG to GIF or GIF to JPG
Convert JPG to GIF to create easily edited files that support animation, transparency, and lossless images. This ensures the creation of computer graphics with limited color palettes, such as simple cartoons, line art, or logos. Convertjack converts JPG to GIF without altering image quality, size, or other features.
Similarly, convertjack is an effective GIF to JPG converter, as it ensures the resultant JPGs are relatively smaller than GIFs, of high quality, require less storage space or consume fewer bytes, and are extensively supported and compatible with different web browsers and software to enhance the online user experience.