Should all images on your website be webp?

Recently, on two Facebook groups, I saw similar threads where the OP asked if WebP is worth it as an image format. So I thought I’d summarize my thoughts and the general consensus of people replying to those posts. We’ll explore whether converting all images on a website to WebP is worth the effort, delving into its benefits, limitations, and practical advice for bloggers, publishers, and content creators.

What is WebP?

WebP is a modern image format that provides (often) superior lossless and lossy compression for images on the web compared to jpg and ong. It was developed by Google to create a more efficient format that could reduce file sizes without sacrificing quality, thereby speeding up the web. Despite its advantages, including smaller file sizes and support for transparency and animation (albeit with some limitations), WebP hasn’t been universally adopted as the new web standard. This is partly because some older browsers do not support it, and not all image editing tools offer the ability to edit WebP files directly.

WordPress and Open Graph support

Here’s the part you actually care about.

Is WebP supported by WordPress? Yes, since 2021.

Is WebP supported in Open Graph? Yes, where it matters. All of the big sites and services – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Slack, etc – will support it. There may be some tiny social network somewhere that doesn’t.

And because you’re reading this article on omgimg.co…

Is WebP supported by OMGIMG? Yes, since version 0.1.3.

Basic Advice on Using WebP

In my experience, WebP images usually compress smaller than jpegs and complex pngs, but not simple pngs. YMMV.

For website owners considering the switch to WebP, the best approach is to prioritize new content rather than converting existing images. The effort and resources required to convert and test old content just won’t justify the potential gains. But when creating new content, consider exporting images in WebP format directly from your image editing software, if supported. Just remember that WebP might not always result in smaller file sizes than JPEG or PNG, so it’s worth comparing the output before making a decision.

And really, the easy answer is to use a third-party service that compresses and hosts images to optimize your website’s performance, dynamically choosing the best format for each site visitor. This approach ensures that images are delivered in the most efficient format possible, considering the viewer’s browser and device capabilities. It’ll also save your bandwidth and server space.

Services and Tools for WebP Conversion and Optimization

There are several services and WordPress plugins designed to help with converting images to WebP and optimizing them:

ShortPixel, EWWW, and Optimole are my favorite services that offer on-the-fly image optimization and conversion. I use one of these on all of my larger, more popular sites.

To keep it simple, WordPress plugins like WebP Converter for Media and Imagify simplify the process of converting and optimizing images directly from within WordPress. These can use a lot of CPU cycles tho and might depend on your hosting.

If you want total control, i.e. for manual conversions to WebP format, these are the sites I have bookmarked and visit regularly:

jpgconverter.com
convertio.co
cloudconvert.com

People also recommended squoosh.app, tinypng.com (which also offers a WordPress plugin), WebsitePlanet (thank you, Jill!), and compress-or-die.com/webp (I love that domain name!).

While WebP offers several benefits over traditional image formats, adopting it involves weighing the pros and cons based on specific needs and the technological context of your audience. For new content, converting to WebP can be a worthwhile effort if it leads to performance improvements. However, for existing content, the return on investment might not be as significant. Utilizing services that automatically optimize and serve images in the most suitable format is a no-brainer here. Let the experts ensure your website remains fast and accessible to all users.

Or you could always just add “best viewed in Mozilla” to your footer. :-P