Which is better to use for images: PNG or WebP?

WebP.

WebP offers a significant advantage over PNG:

• Smaller file size: WebP uses more efficient compression algorithms (both lossy and lossless), resulting in a substantial reduction in file size compared to PNG, which only supports lossless compression or alpha channel. Smaller file sizes speed up image loading, which is important for application performance.
• Animation support: Unlike PNG, WebP supports animation (similar to GIF), which can be useful for some Android applications.

However, there are also downsides:

• Compatibility: Although WebP support in Android is quite widespread, it may be less universal than PNG on very old OS versions or in some specific scenarios.
• Encoding/decoding time: The process of encoding and decoding WebP can be more resource-intensive compared to PNG, although this is usually negligible on modern devices.

Overall, for most scenarios in Android development, using WebP is preferable due to its compression efficiency, which positively impacts performance and traffic usage. If absolute compatibility in all possible conditions is required or encoding/decoding time is a critical factor, PNG can still be considered, but this is rare.