GIF Tools
About GIF
GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) was introduced by CompuServe in 1987 and remains one of the most recognisable image formats on the internet — primarily because of its support for animation. Despite being over 35 years old, GIF is still widely used for short, looping animations on social media, messaging apps, and the web.
What GIF Is Good At
GIF's defining feature is animation: multiple frames stored in a single file, each with its own delay, producing a looping clip without audio. This made GIF the de facto standard for reaction images, memes, and lightweight animations long before video formats became practical for web delivery.
GIF also supports transparency, though only as a binary on/off — a pixel is either fully transparent or fully opaque, with no support for partial (semi-transparent) edges. This makes GIF workable for simple graphics on solid backgrounds, but a poor choice for anything requiring smooth anti-aliased edges.
GIF's Limitations
GIF's biggest technical limitation is its 256-colour palette. Each frame can use at most 256 colours drawn from the full RGB colour space, but photographs typically contain millions of distinct colours. This makes GIF a poor format for photos — colours are dithered (approximated with dot patterns) and the results look noticeably degraded compared to JPG or PNG.
Animated GIF files are also extremely large by modern standards. A few seconds of animation that would be 50–200 KB as a video file can be 2–10 MB as a GIF. For web delivery, replacing animated GIFs with short MP4 or WebM videos produces dramatically smaller files with better quality.
GIF vs. PNG
For static images, PNG is almost always the better choice over GIF. PNG supports full 24-bit colour (16 million colours vs. GIF's 256), true alpha transparency with smooth semi-transparent edges, and lossless compression that produces smaller files for most content. The only reason to use GIF for static images today is legacy compatibility in environments that don't accept PNG.
GIF vs. WebP
WebP supports animation and produces far smaller animated files than GIF — often 40–60% smaller — while supporting full colour and both lossy and lossless compression. WebP animation is supported in all modern browsers. For new content, animated WebP is the technically superior replacement for animated GIF. The reason GIF persists is cultural: sharing platforms, keyboards, and messaging apps have GIF built into their workflows in ways that WebP hasn't yet replaced.
GIF vs. Video (MP4/WebM)
For animated content on the web, a short MP4 or WebM video with autoplay, loop, and muted attributes behaves exactly like an animated GIF from the user's perspective but with dramatically smaller file sizes and higher quality. HTML video is the recommended replacement for animated GIFs in web performance-sensitive contexts.
When to Convert Away From GIF
- Converting to JPG — for still frames extracted from a GIF, or when you need the smallest file for photographic content and don't need transparency
- Converting to PNG — for still frames that need transparency, or for lossless quality
- Converting to WebP — the best modern replacement for both static and animated GIF; smaller files, better quality, full colour support
- Converting to AVIF — even smaller than WebP for static images; excellent for web delivery on Chrome, Firefox, and Safari 16+
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do GIF files look blurry on photographs?
GIF limits each frame to 256 colours. Photographs contain millions of colours, so GIF has to approximate them using dithering — scattering pixels of available colours to simulate ones it can't represent. The result looks grainy or posterised compared to JPG or PNG.
Can I convert an animated GIF to video?
Not with the tools on this page, but you can convert an animated GIF to WebP to get a similar animation in a smaller format. For converting to MP4 or WebM, tools like FFmpeg or online video converters are the right choice.
Does GIF support transparency?
Yes, but only as binary transparency — a pixel is either fully transparent or not at all. There is no support for partial (semi-transparent) pixels, which means edges look jagged on non-white backgrounds. PNG and WebP both support full alpha transparency.
Is GIF going away?
GIF has been declared dead many times but persists because of its deep integration into social media, messaging apps, and internet culture. The format is technically obsolete for new work, but the word "GIF" has become synonymous with short looping animations regardless of the actual file format used.