Choosing the right video file format for your project

Choosing the right animation format is key to balancing quality, performance, and compatibility. Here’s a guide to formats like GIF, MP4, and Lottie JSON.

Animations have become essential to modern advertising and web design, adding vibrancy and engagement to videos, social media posts, and websites. However, achieving the right balance between quality, performance, and compatibility requires carefully selecting the animation format that best suits your project.

When it comes to producing ads, popular formats like MP4 with H.264 codec and MOV dominate for their specific strengths—MP4 for its high compression and MOV for its support of transparency and uncompromised quality.

But choosing the right video format for embedding on a website? That’s where things get tricky. Different factors, from animation complexity to browser compatibility, come into play. Let’s break it down.

What’s inside?

What to consider when choosing an animation format?
Choosing the right video format

What to consider when choosing an animation format?

Different animation formats serve different purposes. From handling complexity to supporting transparency, here’s what you need to keep in mind.

Complexity of the animation

The first thing to consider when choosing a format is the complexity of your animation. For simpler animations—like color changes, rotation, or scaling—formats such as Lottie JSON and GIF work best. These are great for lightweight, straightforward effects.

On the other hand, if you’re dealing with 3D compositions or illustrations packed with visual effects, you’ll need something more robust. In these cases, WebM or MP4 with a transparent background, or even MOV, are better suited to handle the complexity while maintaining visual clarity.

Transparency and semi-transparency

Another crucial factor is whether your animation requires transparency. GIF is often the go-to for simple transparency, but it has a major limitation: it only supports binary transparency. This means each pixel is either fully opaque or fully transparent, with no in-between.

So, if your animation involves semi-transparent elements or complex transparency effects, Lottie JSON, WebM/MP4 with transparency, or MOV are better options.

These formats seamlessly handle gradients and partial transparency, ensuring smoother and more realistic visuals, especially for animations with layered or overlapping elements.

File size and performance

File size plays a significant role in your website’s performance. The smaller the file, the faster your site loads—especially important for mobile users or those with slower internet connections.

For lightweight animations, Lottie JSON is a great choice. It uses vector graphics, giving you sharp visuals with minimal file size.

However, if your project involves more complex 3D assets or detailed compositions, WebM or MP4 with transparency balances quality and compression. These formats keep file sizes relatively low while delivering smooth animations.

Compatibility with browsers and devices

When embedding animations, it’s essential to consider how different browsers and devices handle various formats. GIF and MP4 are widely compatible, making them safe choices for most projects. However, they have limitations, like larger file sizes or reduced visual quality.

Lottie JSON and Rive work seamlessly across most platforms and devices for more modern and flexible options (learn how to recolor Ouch! illustrations in Rive). If you need transparency, WebM and MP4 with transparency are excellent choices, though WebM isn’t supported on Safari for macOS, iPhone, or iPad. So, it’s smart to provide a fallback format like MP4 for full coverage.

Interactivity

If your animation needs to be interactive, your chosen format is crucial. Rive is an excellent option for creating interactive animations, offering a high level of control and flexibility. Alternatively, you can build animations using CSS and JavaScript combined with SVG images.

SVG is particularly handy because it allows for dynamic manipulation of individual elements within the animation. This makes it easy to adjust properties like size, color, and position in real-time, perfect for interactive web experiences.

Choosing the right video format

Selecting the right animation format is a balancing act between complexity, performance, and compatibility. Below is a breakdown of popular formats and their best use cases:

GIF

A staple for simple animations with transparency. While it’s easy to use and widely supported, it only handles 256 colors and binary transparency—each pixel is either fully opaque or fully transparent. Semi-transparent elements, like shadows, will appear as harsh black patches. GIFs also have larger file sizes and lower quality, making them less ideal for intricate or lengthy animations.

Woman with an infographic GIF from the Ouch! illustration library

woman creating infographics — Woman with an infographic GIF from the Ouch! illustration library

AVC MOV

Encoded in Apple ProRes 4444, this format is a favorite in motion design and video production. It supports full transparency and delivers top-tier quality by rendering at the maximum bitrate. However, MOV files are hefty in size and not always optimal for web use. Despite its limitations online, it’s perfect for high-quality video production.

WebM/MP4 with Transparency

WebM is an open, free container format designed for efficient video compression, making it a great choice for web environments. It supports transparency and works well for complex animations. However, it’s not compatible with Safari on macOS, iPhone, and iPad. To bridge this gap, you can pair it with MP4 (HEVC), which also supports transparency and ensures compatibility across Apple devices. These formats offer relatively small file sizes and handle intricate animations seamlessly. Keep in mind, though, that transparency only works in web environments—adding these files to video editors will result in a black background.

Embedding WebM/MP4 with transparency

<video width="100%" height="100%" autoplay loop muted playsinline>
  <source src="link to webM" type="video/webm">
  <source src="link to HEVC Mov" type='video/mp4; codecs="hvc1"'>
</video>

Lottie JSON

A text-based format that stores vector animations in a lightweight, high-quality file. It’s ideal for web and mobile applications, offering sharp visuals with minimal file size. However, it only supports vector graphics, which limits its use for raster elements, 3D compositions, or complex visual effects.

Each format serves a different purpose, and the best choice depends on your project’s specific requirements. In the following articles, we’ll look at each format to help you make the right decision.

Wrapping up

The right animation format can make or break your project. Whether you need lightweight Lottie JSON, versatile WebM/MP4 with transparency, or high-quality AVC MOV, there’s an option for every need.

Knowing what works best means your animations won’t just look good—they’ll perform flawlessly too.