All formats
MP3 vs FLAC
FLAC is lossless at roughly half the size of WAV. MP3 is lossy at roughly a tenth. On typical speakers and earbuds a good MP3 is indistinguishable from the FLAC, so the real question is whether you are storing a library or listening to one.
Side by side
| Spec | MP3 | FLAC |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Audio | Audio |
| Extensions | .mp3 | .flac |
| Introduced | 1993 | 2001 |
| Compression | Lossy | Lossless |
| MIME type | audio/mpeg | audio/flac |
| Use it when | Distributing audio that has to play anywhere without question: podcasts, voice recordings, music. | Archiving audio where quality must be preserved exactly but size still matters. |
| Avoid it when | Archiving or editing masters. Keep WAV or FLAC and export MP3 at the end. | Streaming or distributing to a general audience, where a lossy format is far more practical. |
Where the usual answer breaks
Any file you might re-encode later. Transcoding from FLAC costs nothing; transcoding from MP3 compounds the loss.
MP3
- Plays on virtually every device and player in existence
- Small files at acceptable quality
- ID3 tags for title, artist and artwork are widely understood
- Less efficient than AAC or Opus at the same bitrate
- Lossy, and re-encoding compounds the loss
- No native multichannel support in practice
FLAC
- Lossless, so it decodes bit-for-bit identical to the source
- Roughly half the size of the equivalent WAV
- Strong metadata and embedded cover art support
- Still much larger than MP3 or AAC
- Not supported by some older or more restrictive hardware players
Convert between MP3 and FLAC
Other comparisons
Last updated 2026-08-03