Why WebP and AVIF Are a Pain for Designers and Users

Modern optimization trends and strict Google PageSpeed Insights requirements force developers to massively migrate to "next-generation" image formats — WebP and AVIF. Corporations unanimously claim incredible data compression and faster page loading times. However, if we put aside dry charts and look at real web design practice and the daily life of users, this transition turns into a continuous compromise and technical pain.

A Problem for Regular People: "I Just Want to Download an Image"

Ordinary website visitors suffer the most from WebP and AVIF. Imagine a situation: a user sees a high-quality render, an interface element, or a stock photo on a web resource and wants to save it to their computer or smartphone for further work. They click "Save image as..." and get a file with a .webp or .avif extension.

For many, this becomes a dead end. These formats are still not properly opened by older versions of operating systems, standard Windows viewers, or basic image editors without installing additional codecs. The user has to look for online converters just to transform the image into a familiar JPG or PNG. This significantly degrades the user experience (UX).

Hosting Overhead and CMS Load

For developers, especially those working with popular CMS like Joomla or WordPress, implementing WebP or AVIF can be a real technical challenge. The core problem is that these platforms lack automated, built-inizated generation for such formats.

To automate the process, developers have to install heavy third-party plugins and components. These extensions operate on a duplication principle: they take the original high-quality PNG or JPEG, convert it into the required format, and save the copy to the hosting server. As a result, the number of media files in storage doubles. Disk space runs out much faster due to the generation and permanent accumulation of these copies, creating a heavy one-time strain on site resources during image processing.

Challenges in a Web Designer's Work

During layout and testing, working with WebP often introduces extra overhead. Due to encoding limitations, aggressive or improper compression in this format can lead to subtle color distortion and shifts, which is critical for portfolio sites or online stores where color accuracy matters. In addition, older versions of some browsers (specifically, outdated Safari on macOS and iOS) still may display AVIF incorrectly, forcing the designer to write complex workarounds in the code using the <picture> tag, adding alternative paths to standard formats.

Behind the Scenes of Optimization: Real Progress or Just Extra Work?

Therefore, behind the shiny labels of new WebP and AVIF standards lies a purely pragmatic move by tech giants like Google, Apple, and Netflix. Processing billions of images daily, they save millions of dollars in server and network infrastructure costs by compressing files to the absolute minimum. In real-world web development, however, these solutions remain half-baked.

Compliance with current search engine requirements often forces developers to bloat smaller websites with unnecessary plugins and extra code. Ultimately, this approach fails to deliver genuine speed, complicating the workflow for creators while throwing artificial roadblocks in front of everyday users.