HEIC vs PNG: Key Differences Explained (With Table)

Updated August 12, 2026 · 7 min read

HEIC vs PNG looks like a fair fight until you notice that the two formats were never trying to solve the same problem. HEIC is a camera photo format: it exists to squeeze real-world photographs into as little space as possible. PNG is a lossless graphics format: it exists to reproduce screenshots, logos and line art pixel for pixel, whatever that costs in file size.

So this comparison is less about which format "wins" and more about which tool fits which job. Below you will find a full side-by-side table, a plain-English tour of what each format is actually for, and a decision table organized by content type. If you want more background first, see what a HEIC file is and the companion matchup, HEIC vs JPG.

HEIC vs PNG: the full comparison table

Thirteen rows cover everything that separates the two formats in practice.

What PNG is actually for

PNG was published in 1996 as a free replacement for GIF, and it has one defining property: it is lossless. Every pixel you save is exactly the pixel you get back, through any number of edits and re-saves. That makes it the natural home for content where precision matters: screenshots, user interface graphics, logos, diagrams, line art and anything that contains text. Sharp edges stay sharp, a one-pixel line stays a one-pixel line, and small type stays crisp instead of dissolving into compression artifacts.

PNG's second superpower is transparency. Its full alpha channel is the reason nearly every logo with a see-through background on the web is a PNG, and why designers export cutouts and overlays in the format. Add universal support in every browser and every image editor, and PNG has earned its place as the default graphics format of the internet.

Lossless compression has a quieter benefit too: PNG files never degrade. A lossy format like JPG loses a little quality each time an image is edited and saved again, a problem known as generation loss. A PNG can pass through a hundred rounds of editing and come out with every pixel intact, which is one more reason designers and developers keep working files in the format.

What HEIC is actually for

HEIC comes from a different world. Its standard was finalized in mid-2015 by MPEG, the group behind MP4 and HEVC, and it compresses images with the HEVC video codec standardized in 2013. The goal was raw efficiency for photographs: at the same visual quality, HEIC files are 40-50% smaller than JPG, which is why Apple made it the iPhone's default camera format with iOS 11 in September 2017.

The feature list is photographic through and through: HDR support via the PQ and HLG transfer functions, up to 16-bit color depth, Live Photos and burst sequences stored in a single file, and depth maps that power portrait-mode effects. Professional cameras from Canon, Sony, Nikon and Fujifilm can record HEIF stills too, usually as 10-bit HDR files. Nothing in that list matters for a screenshot; all of it matters for a photo.

The price of that efficiency is reach. PNG opens on anything with a screen, while HEIC needs help almost everywhere outside Apple hardware: Windows 10 requires Microsoft Store add-ons to display it (Windows 11 22H2 and later finally build the support in), Chrome, Firefox and Edge will not render it, Photoshop can open an 8-bit HEIC but cannot save one, and plenty of web forms and CMSes reject .heic uploads outright. None of that makes HEIC a bad format. It just means HEIC is a storage format for your own devices, not a delivery format for the open web.

Why you should not save photos as PNG

Here is the tempting mistake: PNG is lossless, so it must be the highest-quality choice for photos too, right? In practice, no. For photographs, PNG files are typically several times larger than JPG and much larger still than HEIC. A camera photo is full of fine sensor noise and smooth gradients, exactly the kind of data that lossless compression cannot shrink effectively, so the file balloons.

And all that extra weight buys nothing you can see. A photo saved at high quality in a lossy format is visually indistinguishable from the PNG version in normal viewing. Worse, converting an existing HEIC photo to PNG multiplies the file size without restoring a single detail: whatever the camera's encoder discarded at capture time is gone, and wrapping the result in a lossless container cannot bring it back. Photos belong in HEIC for storage or JPG for sharing; PNG earns its bytes on graphics.

Where JPG fits in

There is a third format hiding in this comparison, and for everyday photo sharing it beats both. JPG has been the universal photo currency since 1992: every browser, device, printer, kiosk and web form accepts it without question. So when an iPhone photo needs to go somewhere HEIC cannot, converting it to JPG rather than PNG is almost always the right move. You get a small, photo-appropriate file that opens everywhere, instead of a bloated PNG that is several times larger for no visible benefit.

Even Apple quietly agrees. iOS Mail automatically converts HEIC attachments to JPEG when you email someone outside the Apple ecosystem, and Facebook converts HEIC uploads to JPEG or WebP on its own servers. Notice what neither of them converts to: PNG. When a photo has to travel, the industry answer is JPG.

The conversion takes seconds with a free HEIC to JPG converter: drop the photo, conversion starts automatically, and you download a full-resolution JPG with EXIF metadata preserved. For the complete head-to-head between those two formats, see HEIC vs JPG: what is the difference.

Which format for which content?

When in doubt, find your content type below and use the format next to it.

Verdict

HEIC vs PNG has an unusually clean answer, because it depends entirely on the content. Camera photos belong in HEIC while they live on your devices, and in JPG when they travel. Screenshots, logos, diagrams and anything with text or transparency belong in PNG. The only real mistakes are the crossovers: saving photos as PNG wastes several times the space for zero visible gain, and pushing crisp graphics through a lossy photo codec smudges the exact edges PNG exists to protect. Match the format to the content, and both of these formats are excellent at their own job.