The landscape of file formats has drastically changed in the past years with the adoption of the next-generation file format, WEBP. While WEBP boasts many advantages over customary file formats like GIF, cases exist when the latter stands out among internet users, webmasters, and designers.
This article compares GIF and WEBP by analyzing their key features: transparency, storage, file size, animation, structure, compression, performance, image quality, and browser support.
When is WEBP better than GIF?
WEBP images use lossy and lossless compression, while GIF images use only lossless compression. Lossless WEBP images are 19% smaller than lossless GIFs, while lossy WEBP is 64 % smaller than animated GIFs, making WEBP images suitable for creating and sharing animations online.
Properties of GIF include larger file sizes and a limited color palette compared to WEBP. The former feature necessitates more bytes than WEBP, while the latter makes it unsuitable for reproducing photographs and images with color gradients.
When is GIF better than WEBP?
GIF images are universally compatible with nearly all modern and older browsers, editing software, and platforms. In contrast, WEBP images still encounter compatibility issues with various image editors and web browsers. This makes GIF images suitable for displaying short videos or animated clips online.
Some features of WEBP images include full online functionality, non-support for older browsers, and slight image degradation when working with detailed images, which decreases user experience.
Table Comparison
Element | GIF | WEBP |
Transparency | 1-bit transparency supports transparency or alpha channel | Full semi-transparency support through the alpha channel. |
File Size | Smaller files, but larger than WEBP. It's prone to be heavy without optimization. | Significantly smaller files than GIFs. Lossy and lossless compression allows the most petite sizes. |
Image Quality | Simple or flat low-quality or low-resolution graphics. | Quality loss is unnoticeable in mages—high-quality or high-res images. |
Performance | Bigger files than WEBP slows down web performance and reduces user experience. | Smaller images enhance websites' functionality or boost web responsiveness. |
Structure | Comprises a fixed-length picture descriptor, image data, and an allied list that comprises sub-blocks defining data encrypted using the LZW compression algorithm. | It comprises a container based on RIFF and VP8 or VPL8 image data, and a libwebp library acts as locus execution for specifying WEBP. |
Animation | Images and frames are joined and used to create basic animation. | It supports animation or live pictures, including logos, videos, and images. |
Storage | The compressed Format is stored indefinitely in file systems, the cloud, CDN, hard disks, and floppy drives, requiring more bandwidth. | It stores compressed image data indefinitely in file systems, the cloud, CDN, hard disks, and floppy drives, requiring minimal storage space. |
Compression | Uses a lossless compression technique. | Combines lossy and lossless compression methods. |
Browser Support | Enjoys widespread support in offline and online apps, social media platforms, and web browsers. | Major browsers have good WEBP support, but plugins and extensions are sometimes needed for both online and offline usage. |
Differences and similarities between WEBP and GIF images
GIF and WEBP have similarities in lossless compression, animation, transparency, and browser support.
The two file formats differ in lossy compression, image quality, web browser compatibility, metadata, social media support, web performance, file size, and file structure.
Transparency
Both WEBP and GIF images support transparency, although using different methods. For instance, the WEBP lossless method supports alpha transparency for 22% for any extra bytes. It uses its ability to encrypt files with an alpha channel, which primarily allows data to be transparent in multi-sample pixels.
WEBP transparency pixels or opacity levels have inherent support for transparent images such as logos or non-rectangular graphics. On the other hand, GIF's first version, GIF89a format, also supports the alpha channel. Its alpha channel allows the prearrangement of the palette colors to be ignored.
GIF’s transparency channel concurrently processes images to be displayed on a device. It incorporates transparent backgrounds within picture settings, making GIF images look professional.
File Size 
GIF images are smaller in size but comparatively larger than WEBP files. Its files comprise smaller graphics with limited color support. While the pictures are smaller, they are relatively larger than WEBP images. WEBP file format uses advanced compression algorithms to attain smaller file sizes while preserving high image quality.
Converting a GIF file to a lossy WEBP file results in a 64% reduction in file size. Besides, a lossless WEBP file is 19% smaller than an identical GIF file. Hence, the smaller sizes of WEBP images compared to GIF images make them the preferred choice for images necessitating transparency or animations yet needing to load faster on websites.
Image Quality
The difference between WEBP and GIF is apparent in image quality. Whereas both file formats offer almost smaller identical file sizes, WEBP remains the best option quality-wise. The WEBP image is of high quality.
WEBP supports a bit depth of 24-bit RGB color with an 8-bit alpha channel. The file format uses 8 bits for three RGB color channels, totaling 24-bit RBG color support. Its compression method is efficient and preserves image quality.
GIF is a low-quality file format because it supports only 8 bits per pixel and holds a limited color space of 256 indexed colors. The bit depth allows a single GIF file to reference its palette of up to 256 various colors.
GIFs with smaller pixel dimensions are necessary for low-resolution apps, thumbnails, or simple web displays. Nonetheless, WEBP is both a low- and high-resolution format. Its image resolution depends entirely on the original image's resolution, encrypted into the WEBP format.
Performance
WEBP was created to enhance web performance and create smaller and richer files without compromising image quality. Thus, irrespective of the number of WEBP files, an increase in website responsiveness is often noticed compared to GIF files.
A website with multiple bulky GIF files significantly slows down web performance. When web users want instant access to online content, slow-loading web pages can result in a higher bounce rate, poor user experience, and frustrations.
The compressed WEBP images are smaller than the GIF file format, significantly improving the website's performance and speed. The website's WEBP files load faster because of the significantly reduced file sizes, enhancing user experience.
WEBP compression is necessary for web developers and designers to improve website responsiveness and save bandwidth. It supports more image features but requires fewer bytes than GIF images.
Structure
A WEBP file type comprises VP8L or VP8 image data and a container derived from RIFF (Resource Interchange File Format). The separate lib-WEBP library serves as a locus execution for the WEBP design.
WEBP further contains metadata, a color profile, and transparent information. The pixel matrix makes up the space of the image.
On the other hand, the GIFs image module comprises a fixed-length picture descriptor specifying a global color table's presence and size. The descriptor is followed by image data having one byte that provides the unencoded icon width.
The image data is followed by an allied list comprising sub-blocks that define information encrypted using the LZW compression algorithm. The extension block stretches the GIZ87a description using a pre-defined tool from the GIF87a specifications.
Animation
WEBP and GIF files have inherent support for animation. However, GIF allows images and frames to be joined and used to create basic animation. Its image file headers enable web browsers to display different GIF images in a looped series.
Thus, frames or images are combined into a single file in an animated GIF file and displayed as a short clip or video. Conversely, WEBP supports more detailed or complex animations than GIFs. It supports 24-bit RGB color and an 8-bit alpha channel, compared to the 8-bit color and 1-bit alpha animated GIFs.
The WEBP file format supports lossy and lossless compression encoding, which can coexist in a single animation. However, GIF animation only supports lossless compression. WEBP animation needs fewer bytes compared to GIF animation.
Lossless animated WEBP images are 19% smaller than animated GIFs converted to lossy WEBP, which are 64% smaller.
WEBP animation requires less time to decode than GIF animation. Changing tabs or scrolling shows or hides images, pauses animations, and then skips onward to a dissimilar location. Lossless WEBP animation requires 1.5 times less decoding time, whereas lossy WEBP animation requires 2.2 times, similar to GIF animation.
GIF animation is nearly all-inclusively supported, but WEBP animation support is less broad.
Storage
GIF data are stored in an interlaced and compressed format, while WEBP file format stores data using lossy or lossless compression, which applies VP8 and VP8L key frame encoding.
The storage time for GIF and WEBP files depends on the storage conditions, handling process, and storage medium used. Image data in both file formats can be stored as long as the user wants or indefinitely.
The storage mediums used for WEBP and GIF images include hard drives, Content Delivery Network (CDN), Base64 encoding, cloud storage, floppy drives, and file systems.
Compression
WEBP images use lossless and lossy compression, while GIF images only use lossless compression to condense their image files. Under the lossless WEBP compression method, the image format can be transformed using entropy coding.
While WEBP and GIF images support lossless compression, they also support variable compression, a multi-prolonged image transformation process. It includes packing several pixels into one pixel, replacing alpha, merging plates locally, altering color space, and spatially predicting pixels.
WEBP also employs LZ77-Huffman variation coding during entropy coding to assist in the 2D encoding of compact sparse and distance values. However, the GIF file format uses Lempel Ziv Welch's (LZW) lossless compression technique to compress its files by allowing images to fit into smaller pictures and files.
The GIF’s Lempel Ziv Welch (LZW) compression algorithm exploits repetition in information streams to efficiently store simple graphical images while taking advantage of flat colors.
On the other hand, the lossy WEBP compression predicts video pixels using a technique comparable to VP8, although image quality is lost as some data is selectively deleted.
The VP8 method breaks the frame into fragments called macroblocks, similar to all block-based codecs. The lossless WEBP compression utilizes the already visible image fragments to reconstruct new but exact pixels. It also uses a local palette when no exciting match is established.
Browser Support
WEBP file format is relatively new but enjoys 93.3% of popular web browser support. It is only compatible and natively supported by major web browsers such as Chrome, Edge, Safari, Firefox, and Opera and social media platforms like Discord, Facebook, Slack, and ElementIO.
WEBP is not supported by older browsers such as Intern Explorer and most social media platforms. GI, nonetheless, is widely supported and compatible with almost all web browsers, namely Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Edge, Opera, and Safari.
Social media platforms such as YouTube, Snapchat, Pinterest, Facebook, WeChat, Instagram, and X, among others, fully support GIF images.
Conclusion
WEBP and GIF have similarities and differences, making each file format stand out based on its specific features.
Whereas GIFs are best suited for simple graphics with fewer colors, such as line art, icons, and logos, WEBP can handle detailed or more complex images, like photographs.
WEBP attains smaller file sizes than GIF, making the file format the best choice for images requiring transparency or animation but needing increased web responsiveness.