APNG

Animated PNG
An animated PNG, or APNG, of a bouncing ball (displays as static image in some web browsers)
Filename extension
.png, .apng
Internet media type
image/png, image/apng, image/vnd.mozilla.apng
Developed byMozilla Foundation (adopted by W3C)
Initial releaseAugust 27, 2004; 20 years ago (2004-08-27)[1]
Type of formatanimated lossless bitmap image
Extended fromPNG
Open format?yes

Animated Portable Network Graphics (APNG) is a file format which extends the Portable Network Graphics (PNG) specification to permit animated images that work similarly to animated GIF files, while supporting 24 or 48-bit images and full alpha transparency not available for GIFs. It also retains backward compatibility with non-animated PNG files.

The first frame of an APNG file is stored as a normal PNG stream, so most standard PNG decoders are able to display the first frame of an APNG file. The frame speed data and extra animation frames are stored in extra chunks (as provided for by the original PNG specification). APNG competed with Multiple-image Network Graphics (MNG), a comprehensive format for bitmapped animations which was created by the same team as PNG and is obsolete. APNG's advantage was the smaller library size and compatibility with older PNG implementations.

  1. ^ "Add APNG support for Mozilla". Bugzilla. Mozilla Foundation. 27 August 2004. Retrieved 23 April 2024.