GIF vs Animated WebP vs MP4, Measured on One 5-Second Clip

The short answer

On our test clip, an animated WebP from Video to WebP was lighter than a GIF from Video to GIF at every width and frame rate we compared. The GIF weighed 3.1 to 4.9 times as much. An MP4 made with Resize Video was lighter again: the WebP at 20 frames per second (fps) weighed 1.8 to 2.4 times as much as the MP4.

Two settings change the picture. At 480 px and 15 fps, a GIF with dithering off weighed 1.70 MB, against 3.90 MB with the default Sierra dithering. WebP at quality 100 weighed 3.92 MB, as much as the default GIF. All these numbers come from one cartoon clip.

How we measured

In our check on October 30, 2026, we cut five seconds from Big Buck Bunny (© 2008 Blender Foundation, www.bigbuckbunny.org, CC BY 3.0): 640 × 359 px, 24 fps.

We used three pages on pulsarkit.com, in Chrome 156 on one computer. Video to WebP kept quality 75. Video to GIF kept 128 colors, Sierra dithering and Loop forever. Resize Video at Custom size made the MP4, from a copy of the clip without sound, since GIF and WebP carry none. We tried widths of 640, 480 and 320 px and 10, 15 and 20 fps, plus 30 for WebP. The MP4 kept 24 fps.

The clock ran from the build button until Download turned on. Each run used a fresh browser session, so WebP and GIF times include loading the engine. Sizes are in megabytes of 1,000,000 bytes; the tools' screens count in 1,024s and show a little less (3.7 MB for our 3.90 MB GIF). All three tools run in your browser.

File sizes, same width and frame rate

The WebP gained most on the largest picture. At 640 px the GIF weighed 4.9, 4.8 and 4.7 times as much as the WebP at 10, 15 and 20 fps. At 480 px it was 4.1, 4.1 and 4.0 times, and at 320 px 3.3, 3.2 and 3.1.

The MP4 weighed 1.09 MB at 640 px, 0.65 MB at 480 and 0.31 MB at 320. The WebP at 20 fps weighed 1.8, 2.0 and 2.4 times as much, and the GIF 8.3, 7.9 and 7.6 times. Another encoder would give other MP4 sizes. At 10 fps the WebP was about as light as the MP4 at 640 and 480 px, but with fewer than half the frames.

Video to WebP stores every frame as a whole picture, so its file grows with the frame count. At every width, the 15, 20 and 30 fps files weighed 1.5, 2.0 and 3.0 times the 10 fps file. An MP4 mostly stores what changes from frame to frame. Google's container page says a frame's rectangle “may or may not cover the whole canvas”, so another WebP encoder might store less. We did not measure one.

What decides a GIF's size

Dithering matters more than the number of colors. It scatters dots of nearby colors to fake shades a small palette lacks. At 480 px and 15 fps the default GIF weighed 3.90 MB, with 256 colors 4.48 MB and with 64 colors 3.34 MB. With dithering off it fell to 1.70 MB, and with the Bayer pattern to 1.94 MB.

The price is visible. In a frame enlarged three times, at about 2.5 seconds, the default GIF has speckle across the wall and colored dots on the butterfly's wings. With dithering off, the sky and hills break into flat bands. The WebP looks smooth, its fine texture a little softer. The MP4 and the original looked the same to us, on one frame judged by eye.

The GIF89a specification (W3C, dated 31 July 1990) sizes a color table with a 3-bit field: “To determine that actual size of the color table, raise 2 to [the value of the field + 1].” So a table holds 256 colors at most. Google's WebP FAQ says: “WebP supports 24-bit RGB color with an 8-bit alpha channel, compared to GIF's 8-bit color and 1-bit alpha.” We read both pages on October 30, 2026.

Where WebP is not smaller

At high quality the lead disappears. At 480 px and 15 fps, WebP at quality 50 weighed 0.70 MB, at 75 0.95 MB, at 90 1.94 MB and at 100 3.92 MB. Quality 100 equals the default GIF. Quality 90 is heavier than the GIF with dithering off. At the default 75, the WebP was lighter than all five GIFs at that width and rate.

We did not compare screenshots, logos, flat graphics, dark footage or longer clips, and did not test playback in chat apps, email and web forms. MDN's image guide, read on October 30, 2026, lists WebP support in Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Opera and Safari.

Build time and which format to pick

A 5-second WebP took 7 to 24 seconds to build, the slowest at 640 px and 30 fps. The GIF took 7 to 19 seconds, the MP4 1.3 to 2.1. The MP4 route needs a browser with a built-in H.264 encoder. Your computer will give other times.

Where a video is accepted, the MP4 was the smallest and quickest. Where only a picture is accepted, WebP was lighter, wherever it displays. Keep the GIF where only a GIF works. GIF to MP4 turns a GIF into a video, and Trim Video cuts the seconds you need first. For still photos, see WebP vs AVIF vs JPEG, measured on one photo.

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