All formats
GIF vs MP4
An MP4 of the same animation is routinely five to ten times smaller than the GIF and is not capped at 256 colours. GIF autoplays inline everywhere with no player. For screen recordings and looping clips on a website, MP4 or WebM is the correct format and GIF is a habit.
Side by side
| Spec | GIF | MP4 |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Image | Video |
| Extensions | .gif | .mp4, .m4v |
| Introduced | 1987 | 2001 |
| Compression | Lossless | Lossy |
| MIME type | image/gif | video/mp4 |
| Use it when | A short looping animation must autoplay in a context that will not allow video. | Any video that must simply play, anywhere, without the recipient thinking about it. |
| Avoid it when | Anywhere video is allowed, or for still photographs. Use MP4/WebM or PNG/WebP. | You need a fully royalty-free pipeline. Use WebM. |
Where the usual answer breaks
Anywhere you cannot run a video element: email, some chat clients, and older documentation platforms.
GIF
- Animation support that plays essentially everywhere
- Simple single-color transparency
- Universally recognised
- Maximum 256 colours per frame, causing visible banding
- Animated GIFs are far larger than an equivalent short video
- No partial transparency
MP4
- Plays on effectively every device, browser and editor
- Efficient compression with H.264 or H.265
- Supports subtitles, chapters and multiple audio tracks
- H.264 and H.265 carry patent licensing obligations in some contexts
- Larger than an equivalent AV1 or VP9 encode
Tools for these formats
Local only
GIF to MP4
Converts an animated GIF into a compact, widely playable MP4 video file, cutting the overall file size down quite significantly.
GIF → MP4
Local only
MP4 to WebM
Converts MP4 video files into the WebM format that's widely supported across modern browsers and video-hosting platforms.
MP4 → WebM
Other comparisons
Last updated 2026-08-03