JPEG XL
.jxl · image/jxl · 2021 · JPEG Committee (ISO/IEC)
JPEG XL is the official successor to JPEG, finalized in 2021. It matches or beats AVIF on photographic quality per byte, encodes much faster, supports lossless mode, progressive decoding, HDR, and can even recompress existing JPEGs losslessly ~20% smaller. Safari supports it natively and Chrome re-added support in 2025 behind its Rust decoder; adoption is growing but not yet universal — check your target platform before shipping JXL.
Compression
Lossy + lossless
Transparency
Yes
Animation
Yes
Browser display
Partial
Strengths & limitations
Strengths
- Excellent quality-per-byte, fast encoding
- Lossless mode and lossless JPEG recompression
- HDR, wide gamut, up to 32-bit per channel
Limitations
- Browser support still settling (Safari yes; others rolling out)
- Little support in desktop tools so far
- Ecosystem momentum currently favors AVIF
Best used for
- Archiving photos losslessly
- High-fidelity photography delivery
- Future-proof masters