Animated GIFs vs Videos

Discussions criticize the inefficiency, large file sizes, and poor quality of animated GIFs, advocating for replacements like HTML5 videos, WebM, or services such as Imgur's GIFV and Gfycat.

📉 Falling 0.5x Web Development

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egfx (26) Dylan16807 (19) pornel (19) chrismorgan (18) maxst (15)

Keywords

mediacru.sh IT WITH DEAL e.g GIF HN CGI i.e MP4 gif gifs animated video png just send url file send videos

Sample Comments

jcromartie • Oct 9, 2014 • View on HN

Why can't we just deal with video without hiding it behind "GIF"?

taco_emoji • Aug 28, 2015 • View on HN

Wish they would do this for animated GIFs...

andrei_says_ • Feb 19, 2020 • View on HN

No. Show me an animated gif instead.

chairmanwow • Apr 24, 2017 • View on HN

This is hilarious. Any chance that the gif could be upgraded to an html5 video?

michaelvoz • Jun 22, 2016 • View on HN

That gif is so short, it could be a png and lose no value!

ThePowerOfFuet • Jan 11, 2023 • View on HN

GIFs are huge. Leave it as a video.

msoad • Jan 31, 2021 • View on HN

It's ironic that this page is using a GIF image instead of video. It is suppose to be the forefront of web tech advancement

busymom0 • Apr 29, 2019 • View on HN

Somebody should built an equivalent for gifs and videos

kwood • Nov 24, 2016 • View on HN

Those are animated GIF's, not "real" videos.

franga2000 • May 24, 2025 • View on HN

Please no?!? Gifs are super inefficient and they look exceptionally bad at any usable compression level. Just use a muted video!