AVIF vs JPEG: How Much Smaller at the Same Quality

The short answer in one line

If you have no time for the whole thing: at the same quality, AVIF weighs about half as much as JPEG. It also renders color and smooth gradients better. JPEG's one weighty trump card is that it opens absolutely everywhere, whereas AVIF is mostly understood by modern browsers. Below is why that's the case and the nuances involved.

Size: how much smaller it really is

"Half the size" is an average. The real saving depends on the picture itself:

• Smooth photos (portraits, sky, blurred backgrounds) — AVIF wins by the most, often saving 50–60%. Here its smart block prediction works at full strength.
• Detailed shots (foliage, gravel, fabric textures) — the gain is more modest, 30–45%, because noisy areas compress poorly in any format.
• Graphics and screenshots with text — AVIF is ahead again: sharp text edges barely ring, unlike in JPEG.

To make this concrete, here's a typical example with a medium-sized photo:

For a single image the difference seems small. But if a page has 30 images and thousands of people open it daily, saving half a terabyte of bandwidth a month is real money — and a noticeably faster site.

Quality and artifacts at equal weight

Let's flip the question: what if we make the files the same size and compare the picture? Here AVIF wins even more visibly. Under heavy compression JPEG produces two characteristic defects:

• Blockiness — the image breaks into 8×8 squares, especially obvious in flat areas.
• Ringing — ghostly halo lines around sharp edges: letter outlines, branches against the sky.

Thanks to flexible blocks and advanced filters, AVIF is almost free of these ailments. Even at a low bitrate it degrades gracefully — the image gets a touch softer but doesn't fall apart into squares. To the eye that's far more pleasant.

Color, HDR and depth

This isn't even a comparison so much as different weight classes. JPEG is hard-limited to 8 bits per channel and the sRGB space. AVIF can do:

In practice AVIF's 10-bit color saves the day where JPEG shows ugly banding — on a sunset sky, smooth gradients, shadows on skin. And HDR support means a shot from a modern phone keeps its real brightness range. JPEG simply can't do that.

Compatibility: where AVIF loses

Now, in fairness, AVIF's weak spot — otherwise this comparison would read like an ad. JPEG opens literally everywhere: in any browser since the 90s, in Word, Outlook, on any printer, in an ATM and on a TV. That's its superpower.

AVIF vs JPEG at a glance

What to choose for your task

There's no one-size-fits-all answer — it depends on where the image is headed:

• For your own website — AVIF (as the primary option) with a JPG fallback via the <picture> tag. You get speed without losing compatibility. More on this in AVIF for website speed.
• To send a photo to someone (email, messenger, print) — JPG. It will open on any device.
• If you already downloaded an AVIF that won't open — convert it to JPG.

It's also worth comparing AVIF with WebP — the third modern format. We covered that in a separate article, WebP vs AVIF.

And if instead you want to compress your JPEGs into a light AVIF, use the JPG to AVIF converter.