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WebP images are quickly gaining popularity, and it’s not hard to see why. This simple guide will cover what WebP is, browser compatibility, and pros & cons for WordPress sites.
Edit: This post has been updated since it was originally posted in 2021, to include up-to-date information about WordPress and WebP.
One of the aspects that make modern websites so interactive is high quality, crisp images. They increase user engagement on your site and reduce your bounce rate, ultimately increasing conversions.
There’s just one challenge: most common image formats weigh a lot and end up slowing your WordPress site.
With most web users on mobile phones, it’s important that you make your site responsive, and this includes reducing the size of the image files. According to Google, 53% of mobile users will abandon a site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load.
In 2021, WordPress 5.8 introduced native WebP support to the CMS, meaning you can upload and use WebP images directly without any plugins. WordPress 6.5 then took this further by adding native support for AVIF, an even more advanced next-gen format, but more on that below.
So could WebP be the future of WordPress images? Check out our simple guide below!
WebP is a next-gen image format that allows developers to compress images without impacting their image quality. It was first announced by Google in 2010.
Unoptimised images are one of the major causes of slow loading times because high resolution images take up a lot of bandwidth. It is however difficult to compress images without reducing their image quality, which is where WebP comes into play.
Lossy: you reduce the image’s data size, but its quality deteriorates.
Lossless: the data size reduces, but image quality remains the same.
With WebP, you’re able to reduce the file size of your images without compromising on their quality. If your WordPress site is heavily dependent on images, with WebP, you can shave precious milliseconds off your site’s loading time.
There are 3 main types of image formats used on WordPress sites; JPEG, PNG, GIFs. Here’s a quick comparison of how WebP compares to them.
JPEGs are perfect for photographs because they display high-quality images. The files are, however, usually large and lose their quality when compressed. According to Google, the Lossy compression of WebP is 25-34% smaller than that of JPEG, making it a better alternative.
PNGs are perfect for interface screenshots or logos because these images don’t have a lot of data. Even though this format retains the image quality when compressed, it’s not suitable for photographs. WebP has a 26% lower lossless compression rate than PNG and has a faster loading time.
GIFs work well with animations but are unsuitable for static images. WebP will reduce the file size of your GIFs without compromising on quality. Animated GIFs, however, don’t hold well with lossy compression.
WebP images are clearly the better format because you can subject them to both lossy and lossless compression without the image quality loss that comes with JPEG and PNG files. When you also consider the reduction in website load times that comes with WebP images, it makes sense to use this image format on WordPress sites.
WebP now enjoys near-universal browser support, with over 95% global coverage. All major browsers fully support WebP, including:
The small percentage of users who may not see WebP images are those on very old browser versions. You can add backup JPEG and PNG images to display to these users, ensuring no one has a broken experience.
There are also several tools, software libraries, and image editing tools that support the WebP image format.
The main benefit of WebP is that it allows you to enhance the user experience by compressing images without reducing their quality. This in turn, creates lightweight images that reduce your site’s load times.
Other advantages of this image format include:
The main drawback of WebP is that a small minority of users on older browsers may not be able to view WebP images, though with 95% + browser coverage in 2026, this is increasingly rare. You can easily bypass this by adding JPEG and PNG backups.
There are 3 main ways of adding WebP images to WordPress.
This involves converting your images into WebP format before uploading them to your website. Before WordPress 5.8 introduced WebP support in 2021, developers had to use CDNs or install WordPress plugins to upload WebP images to their sites.
Since WordPress 5.8, you can upload WebP images directly to the media library just as you would a JPEG or PNG, no plugin required. Note that while native support lets you upload and serve WebP images, it doesn’t automatically convert your existing JPEG and PNG images to WebP. For that, you’ll need a plugin (see below) or to do so manually.
This remains the best option for most sites, as it handles conversion of your existing image library and ensures fallback images are served to users on unsupported browsers. Upload your images in PNG/JPG format and then choose your preferred image optimisation plugin to convert them into WebP. Recommended plugins you can use to do this include:
CDN’s enable your website to load faster by caching your site content. You can also use them to convert your JPG and PNG images to WebP format and then display them to various web users, based on their browser.
If you’re already using WebP, it’s worth being aware of AVIF (AV1 Image File Format), the next generation of image compression. Since WordPress 6.5, AVIF is natively supported in WordPress, and it offers even better performance than WebP. Images can be up to 50% smaller than JPEGs while maintaining the same visual quality. It also supports a wider colour range, including HDR.
AVIF is supported by all major browsers and works particularly well for photographic images. If your hosting environment supports it, it’s well worth exploring. We’ve covered this in more detail in our dedicated AVIF post.
Yes!
This next generation image format will help you retain customers by reducing the time it takes for your web pages to load. Websites that rely heavily on images tend to be slow, and WebP solves this problem by compressing images, without altering their quality.
With near-universal browser support, concerns about compatibility are largely a thing of the past, though adding JPEG/PNG fallbacks remains good practice for the small number of users on older browsers.
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