AVIF — the AV1 Image File Format — delivers the best compression of any common web image format. But browser support lagged behind WebP for years, making it risky to deploy without extensive fallbacks. In 2026, that situation has changed substantially.
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Current AVIF browser support (2026)
| Browser | AVIF support since | Current status |
|---|---|---|
| Chrome | v85 (Aug 2020) | Full support |
| Edge | v121 (Jan 2024) | Full support |
| Firefox | v93 (Oct 2021) | Full support |
| Safari | v16.4 (Mar 2023) | Full support |
| Safari iOS | iOS 16.4 (Mar 2023) | Full support on iOS 16.4+ |
| Samsung Internet | v23 (2023) | Full support |
| Opera | v71+ | Full support |
Global coverage estimate (2026): ~93–95% of browser sessions based on usage share data.
The remaining ~5–7% is predominantly:
- Older iOS devices on Safari 15 or earlier (cannot update past iOS 15)
- Legacy Edge versions
- Some enterprise environments still on older Chrome
How to serve AVIF with a fallback
The standard approach uses the HTML <picture> element to serve AVIF to supporting browsers and fall back to WebP or JPEG for others:
<picture>
<source srcset="image.avif" type="image/avif">
<source srcset="image.webp" type="image/webp">
<img src="image.jpg" alt="Description">
</picture>
The browser reads the <source> elements in order and uses the first one it supports. A browser that supports AVIF gets image.avif. A browser that supports WebP but not AVIF gets image.webp. Anything else gets image.jpg.
For most new projects in 2026, a two-layer fallback (AVIF + JPEG) is sufficient, since WebP coverage is essentially universal:
<picture>
<source srcset="image.avif" type="image/avif">
<img src="image.jpg" alt="Description">
</picture>
AVIF vs. WebP: which to choose in 2026
| Consideration | AVIF | WebP |
|---|---|---|
| Compression (photos) | ~50–80% smaller than JPEG | ~25–35% smaller than JPEG |
| Compression (vs. each other) | 10–20% smaller than WebP | — |
| Browser coverage | ~93–95% | ~97%+ |
| Encoding speed | Slow (CPU-intensive) | Fast |
| Decoding speed | Fast | Fast |
| Transparency | Yes | Yes |
| Animation | Yes | Yes |
Choose AVIF when:
- File size reduction is the priority (image-heavy pages, e-commerce)
- You're starting a new project and can implement proper fallbacks
- Your users are predominantly on modern devices (mobile-first audience skews newer)
Stick with WebP when:
- You already have a working WebP pipeline and the migration cost outweighs the gain
- You're generating images dynamically (AVIF encoding is 5–10x slower than WebP)
- You need to support a significant portion of older iOS users
Does AVIF work on mobile?
Yes. Safari on iOS has supported AVIF since iOS 16.4 (March 2023). Chrome on Android has supported it since Chrome 85 (2020). The main mobile edge case is older iPhones that cannot update past iOS 15 — these use Safari 15, which does not support AVIF.
If your analytics show significant iOS 15 traffic (common for audiences with older device cycles), keep the WebP layer in your fallback chain.
AVIF in Next.js and image CDNs
Next.js Image component: Next.js automatically serves AVIF to supporting browsers when using the <Image> component with formats: ['image/avif', 'image/webp'] in your next.config.js. This is opt-in but straightforward.
Cloudflare Images, Cloudinary, Imgix: All major image CDNs support AVIF delivery with automatic format negotiation — they serve AVIF to supporting browsers and JPEG/WebP to others based on the Accept header.
Self-hosted: If you're serving images from your own server, you can check the Accept header for image/avif and serve the appropriate format. Libraries like Sharp (Node.js) support AVIF encoding.
Converting your existing images to AVIF
ConvertYard converts JPG, PNG, and WebP to AVIF in your browser — no upload, no server processing. The conversion uses the same libvips library that powers professional image pipelines.
For web delivery, AVIF quality 60–70 is the standard starting point (AVIF's quality scale is more efficient than WebP's — quality 65 AVIF is roughly equivalent to quality 80 WebP in perceptual terms).
For batch conversion of large image libraries, ConvertYard processes 1,000+ files in a single session with per-file progress tracking and ZIP download.