What is AVIF? A Modern Image Format Guide

What is AVIF?

AVIF (AV1 Image File Format) is an image format based on the AV1 video codec. It was designed to provide better compression than JPEG and WebP while maintaining similar or better visual quality.

Key benefits

Smaller file sizes — Often 20–50% smaller than JPEG at the same perceived quality.
Wide quality range — From lossy to lossless, with fine control over quality vs. size.
Royalty-free — No licensing fees for encoding or decoding.
Wide support — Supported in all major browsers and many tools.

When to use AVIF

Web images — Hero images, galleries, thumbnails where size matters.
Storage — Archiving or serving many images with limited bandwidth.
Conversion — Use tools like GetAVIF to convert existing JPEG/PNG/WebP to AVIF.

Converting to AVIF

You can convert images to AVIF in the browser with GetAVIF: upload your image, choose AVIF as the output format, and download. All processing happens locally for privacy.

This blog is part of the GetAVIF project — a free, local AVIF/WebP/PNG/JPEG converter.