How is APNG different from a regular PNG?

APNG is the same PNG, just with animation. Inside it stores the first frame as an ordinary PNG plus extra frames in special chunks. So a file with a .png or .apng extension looks like a still image in old software and comes alive wherever the format is supported.

Why is APNG better than GIF?

GIF can only show 256 colors and hard on/off transparency. APNG keeps the full 24 bits of color (16.7 million shades) and smooth 8-bit transparency. That means gradients, shadows and anti-aliased edges look clean in APNG, with no graininess and no dirty halo around the object.

Do all browsers display APNG?

Yes, every current one: Firefox (since 2008), Safari (since 2014), Chrome and Edge (since 2017), Opera. The only holdout was Internet Explorer, which is long retired. If a browser somehow doesn't know the format, it simply shows the first frame — the image never breaks.

Where did the APNG format come from?

APNG was created at Mozilla in 2004 as a simple extension of PNG for animation. The PNG group didn't accept it officially at first, but browsers shipped it anyway. In 2023 APNG was folded into the third edition of the PNG standard — it's now part of the official specification.

How do I make an APNG from PNG images?

You assemble several PNG frames into one animated file. The easiest way is to upload the frames into a PNG to APNG online converter: it stitches them into an animation with the delay you set between frames. To pull a single still frame back out, use an APNG to PNG converter.

What Is APNG? The Animated PNG That Beats GIF

You've seen APNG a thousand times without knowing it: the smooth loader on a website, the crisp sticker in a chat, the blinking icon in an app. It's the format where the familiar PNG learned to move — while keeping its millions of colors and glass-clean transparency. Let's unpack from scratch how it works and why it's quietly replacing GIF.

What APNG is in plain English

APNG (Animated PNG) is the animated version of the familiar PNG format. In short: take a PNG, which shows one still picture with transparency, and give it a few more frames. The result is a tiny silent loop that plays in your browser — like a GIF, but cleaner.

The key thing to remember: APNG throws away none of PNG's strengths. It keeps full color (16.7 million shades), smooth transparency (where the edge of an object fades gently instead of being chopped into a staircase), and lossless compression. It just lets all of that move now.

In short

APNG = PNG + animation. It's the same format you already know, just with several frames inside. The picture stays sharp, the colors stay real, the transparency stays soft. Think of it as GIF done right.

Where the format came from

APNG was born in 2004 inside Mozilla — the company behind the Firefox browser. The engineers needed a lightweight way to show animated interface bits (like a spinning loading indicator), and instead of inventing a heavy new format they chose to gently extend PNG.

From there the story takes a funny turn. The official PNG working group initially refused to add APNG to the standard, arguing it clashed with the format's philosophy. Browsers disagreed: Firefox shipped APNG back in 2008, then Safari, Chrome, Edge and Opera followed. The format lived and worked for years without a formal blessing.

The matter was only settled recently: in 2023 APNG was officially folded into the third edition of the PNG standard. What browsers had relied on for a decade and a half finally became part of the official specification.

A smooth rainbow spectrum on a dark background — APNG stores the full color spectrum losslessly — Full spectrum and smooth transitions — something GIF's 256 colors simply can't reproduce. Photo: Pexels

How PNG learned to move

A PNG file is built from blocks called chunks. Think of them as numbered bricks: one stores the dimensions, another the palette, another the actual pixels. APNG adds just three new bricks to that set — and that's enough to bring the picture to life:

acTL — the "animation passport." It sits near the start and announces: this is an animated PNG, it has this many frames, and loop them this many times (zero means "forever").
fcTL — the "frame director." Before each frame, it describes it: size, position, how many milliseconds to hold it on screen, and what to do with the old frame before showing the new one.
fdAT — the "frame reel." It holds the actual pixels of each extra frame (the first frame lives in the ordinary PNG block).

The beauty of the design is its thrift. No new engine, no new codec, no new software. Any system that can already read PNG understands most of the file; it just needs to learn three new chunks.

Full name

Animated PNG

Extension

.apng / .png

Color

Up to 16.7M (24-bit)

Transparency

Smooth (8-bit alpha)

Compression

Lossless

Animation

Yes, frame-based

The killer trick: backward compatibility

Here is the most elegant move APNG makes, and the reason to love it. The first frame of the animation is stored as a perfectly ordinary PNG. All the "moving" data is tucked into extra chunks that an old program is fully entitled to skip.

What does that mean in practice? Open an APNG in an ancient viewer that has never heard of animation, and you'll see a neat still image (the first frame) instead of an error or an empty box. Open the same file in a modern browser, and it springs to life. One file behaves correctly in both the past and the present.

APNG never truly "breaks": worst case, you see a beautiful still image instead of an animation. It's a format that fails gracefully — the worst it does is stand still.

Why APNG beats GIF

GIF appeared in 1987, when screens showed a pitiful handful of colors, and it has barely changed since. By today's standards its limits are almost comical:

Feature	APNG	GIF
Number of colors	16.7M	256
Transparency	Smooth (256 levels)	Hard (on/off)
Gradients and shadows	Clean	Grainy, banded
Compression	Lossless, more efficient	Dated LZW
Compatibility	All browsers	All browsers

The most visible difference is transparency. GIF can mark exactly one color as "fully invisible"; everything else is opaque. That's why a GIF sticker is so often wrapped in an ugly white or gray fringe. APNG, meanwhile, makes the edge soft: a pixel can be 30% transparent, 70% — any fraction. The object lands cleanly on any background, with no "dirty halo."

Where APNG wins hardest

Logos, icons, stickers, interface micro-animations, smooth gradient effects — anything where clean colors and tidy edges matter. There's more on this in our article APNG vs GIF.

Where you meet APNG

APNG is an invisible format: you use it every day without realizing it.

Stickers in messengers. Apple picked APNG as the main format for animated iMessage stickers back in 2016 — precisely because of its smooth transparency.
Website and app interfaces. Loaders, toggles, tiny hint animations, emoji reactions.
Promos and banners. Short looping clips where image quality matters more than file size.

If you want to go deeper, we covered the use cases in a separate piece on APNG in web and stickers.

A bright multicolor swirl — an example of a smooth interface animation in the APNG format — Interface micro-animations are APNG's home turf: clean, smooth, no graininess. Photo: Pexels

How to make and open an APNG

Making an APNG is easier than it sounds: prepare a few frames as PNGs and "stitch" them into an animation. To pull a single still frame out of a finished APNG, you do the reverse — take it apart back into PNG.

Prepare the frames

Save each frame of the animation as a separate PNG of the same size.

Assemble the animation

Upload the frames into a PNG to APNG converter and set the delay between them.

Download the result

The finished APNG opens in any modern browser and embeds with a plain <img> tag.

Assemble your first APNG right now

Upload a few PNG frames into our free converter — it stitches them into a smooth animation in a couple of seconds, right in your browser, with no install.

Make APNG from PNG

Need the opposite — to pull a frame out of an animation? The APNG to PNG converter keeps the first frame with its transparency. And we put a step-by-step guide with all the tools into the article how to make an APNG. The full list of conversions lives on the all formats page.