About WEBP

07/16/2026 file format dev-log WEBP

Hello! And now i'll nerdly explain what is the .WEBP file format and why i changed my whole website to it!

The .WEBP file format was developed by Google, in order to be used in websites, it has many advantages over the usual .JPG/.JPE .PNG .GIF because of it's technologies. I'll list them here, and explain them in more detail on the next windows.

• It can use both lossy and lossless compression algorithms.
• It supports the alpha channel (transparency for transparent backgrounds.
• It supports multiple frames, like GIFs.
• It's open-source!

Basically, when someone takes a picture with their phone, instead of saving the photo with the absurd resolution it would normally have, and make a photo use 7Mb of storage, the file formats use a compression algorithm, that algorithm makes similar pixels with similar colors, the same color, to reduce file size.

There are two types of compression, lossy, and lossless.

• Lossy compression, permanently deletes partial data from the file, in order to save space, this includes .JPG/.JPE .mp3 and much others. But by removing part of the data, it looses some quality, so this format is used when space is key, not quality.
• Lossless doesn't delete any data, and by consequence, it has more quality, but uses more space too. It can be reversed to the original file if altered, since it doesn't delete any data, so if you crop an image that uses lossless compression, the cropped part will still take up space in your computer. It has less data holding capacity than lossy. This compression is used by .PNG .GIF and others.

So, WEBP uses them both compression algorithms. How? I don't actually know. I tried learning it, but it's just wizardry at this point. But i've made some tests and i can guarantee .WEBP is really best for a website. So, i changed my whole website to it, and it actually loads a bit faster, I imagine how this would affect big websites, with many images and such!