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SDWebImageWebPCoder

A WebP coder plugin for SDWebImage, use libwebp

From SDWebImage·Updated June 11, 2026·View on GitHub·

Starting with the SDWebImage 5.0 version, we moved the WebP support code and [libwebp](https://github.com/webmproject/libwebp) from the Core Repo to this stand-alone repo. The project is written primarily in Objective-C, distributed under the MIT License license, first published in 2018. Key topics include: animated-webp, carthage, cocoapods, ios, macos.

Latest release: 0.15.00.15.0 - ICC Profile Embedding
November 3, 2025View Changelog →

SDWebImageWebPCoder

CI Status
Version
License
Platform
SwiftPM compatible
Carthage compatible
codecov

Starting with the SDWebImage 5.0 version, we moved the WebP support code and libwebp from the Core Repo to this stand-alone repo.

SDWebImageWebPCoder supports both WebP decoding and encoding, for Static WebP or Animated WebP as well.

Note: Apple's ImageIO supports WebP decoding from iOS 14/tvOS 14/watchOS 7/macOS 11, so SDWebImage on those platform can also decode WebP images (using SDWebImageAWebPCoder built-in coder). However it may contains some limitation, check https://github.com/SDWebImage/SDWebImage/issues/3558, you can still force to use this coder on those platforms by adding this coder.

Requirements

  • iOS 9.0
  • macOS 10.11
  • tvOS 9.0
  • watchOS 2.0
  • Xcode 11.0

Installation

CocoaPods

SDWebImageWebPCoder is available through CocoaPods. To install it, simply add the following line to your Podfile:

ruby
pod 'SDWebImageWebPCoder'

Carthage

SDWebImageWebPCoder is available through Carthage.

github "SDWebImage/SDWebImageWebPCoder"

Swift Package Manager (Xcode 11+)

SDWebImageWebPCoder is available through Swift Package Manager.

swift
let package = Package( dependencies: [ .package(url: "https://github.com/SDWebImage/SDWebImageWebPCoder.git", from: "0.3.0") ] )

Usage

Add Coder

Before using SDWebImage to load WebP images, you need to register the WebP Coder to your coders manager. This step is recommended to be done after your App launch (like AppDelegate method).

  • Objective-C
objective
// Add coder SDImageWebPCoder *webPCoder = [SDImageWebPCoder sharedCoder]; [[SDImageCodersManager sharedManager] addCoder:webPCoder];
  • Swift
swift
// Add coder let WebPCoder = SDImageWebPCoder.shared SDImageCodersManager.shared.addCoder(WebPCoder)

Modify HTTP Accept Header

Some of image server provider may try to detect the client supported format, by default, SDWebImage use image/*,*/*;q=0.8 for Accept. You can modify it with the image/webp as well.

  • Objective-C
objective
[[SDWebImageDownloader sharedDownloader] setValue:@"image/webp,image/*,*/*;q=0.8" forHTTPHeaderField:@"Accept"];
  • Swift
swift
SDWebImageDownloader.shared.setValue("image/webp,image/*,*/*;q=0.8", forHTTPHeaderField:"Accept")

Loading

  • Objective-C
objective
// WebP online image loading NSURL *webpURL; UIImageView *imageView; [imageView sd_setImageWithURL:webpURL];
  • Swift
swift
// WebP online image loading let webpURL: URL let imageView: UIImageView imageView.sd_setImage(with: webpURL)

Progressive Animation Loading (0.5.0+)

  • Objective-C
objective
// WebP progressive loading for animated image NSURL *webpURL; SDAnimatedImageView *imageView; imageView.shouldIncrementalLoad = YES; [imageView sd_setImageWithURL:webpURL placeholderImage:nil options:SDWebImageProgressiveLoad];
  • Swift
swift
// WebP progressive loading for animated image let webpURL: URL let imageView: SDAnimatedImageView imageView.shouldIncrementalLoad = true imageView.sd_setImage(with: webpURL, placeholderImage: nil, options: [.progressiveLoad])

Decoding

  • Objective-C
objective
// WebP image decoding NSData *webpData; UIImage *image = [[SDImageWebPCoder sharedCoder] decodedImageWithData:webpData options:nil];
  • Swift
swift
// WebP image decoding let webpData: Data let image = SDImageWebPCoder.shared.decodedImage(with: data, options: nil)

Thumbnail Decoding (0.4.0+)

  • Objective-C
objective
// WebP thumbnail image decoding NSData *webpData; CGSize thumbnailSize = CGSizeMake(300, 300); UIImage *thumbnailImage = [[SDImageWebPCoder sharedCoder] decodedImageWithData:webpData options:@{SDImageCoderDecodeThumbnailPixelSize : @(thumbnailSize)}];
  • Swift
swift
// WebP thumbnail image decoding let webpData: Data let thumbnailSize = CGSize(width: 300, height: 300) let image = SDImageWebPCoder.shared.decodedImage(with: data, options: [.decodeThumbnailPixelSize: thumbnailSize])

Decoding with limit bytes (0.12.0+)

  • Objective-C
objective
// WebP thumbnail image decoding NSData *webpData; NSUInteger limitBytes = 1024 * 1024; // 1MB UIImage *image = [[SDImageWebPCoder sharedCoder] decodedImageWithData:webpData options:@{SDImageCoderDecodeScaleDownLimitBytes : @(limitBytes)}]; // The image pixel buffer is guaranteed to less than 1MB in RAM (may scale down or full size), suitable for large image
  • Swift
swift
// WebP thumbnail image decoding let webpData: Data let limitBytes = 1024 * 1024 // 1MB let image = SDImageWebPCoder.shared.decodedImage(with: data, options: [.decodeScaleDownLimitBytes: limitBytes]) // The image pixel buffer is guaranteed to less than 1MB in RAM (may scale down or full size), suitable for large image

Encoding

  • Objective-c
objective
// WebP image encoding UIImage *image; NSData *webpData = [[SDImageWebPCoder sharedCoder] encodedDataWithImage:image format:SDImageFormatWebP options:nil]; // Animated encoding NSArray<SDImageFrames *> *frames; NSData *awebpData = [[SDImageWebPCoder sharedCoder] encodedDataWithFrames:frames loopCount:0 format:SDImageFormatWebP options:nil]; // Encode Quality NSData *lossyWebpData = [[SDImageWebPCoder sharedCoder] encodedDataWithImage:image format:SDImageFormatWebP options:@{SDImageCoderEncodeCompressionQuality : @(0.1)}]; // [0, 1] compression quality NSData *limitedWebpData = [[SDImageWebPCoder sharedCoder] encodedDataWithImage:image format:SDImageFormatWebP options:@{SDImageCoderEncodeMaxFileSize : @(1024 * 10)}]; // v0.6.0 feature, limit output file size <= 10KB
  • Swift
swift
// WebP image encoding let image: UIImage let webpData = SDImageWebPCoder.shared.encodedData(with: image, format: .webP, options: nil) // Animated encoding let frames: [SDImageFrame] let awebpData = SDImageWebPCoder.shared.encodedData(with: frames, loopCount: 0, format: .webP, options: nil) // Encode Quality let lossyWebpData = SDImageWebPCoder.shared.encodedData(with: image, format: .webP, options: [.encodeCompressionQuality: 0.1]) // [0, 1] compression quality let limitedWebpData = SDImageWebPCoder.shared.encodedData(with: image, format: .webP, options: [.encodeMaxFileSize: 1024 * 10]) // v0.6.0 feature, limit output file size <= 10KB

Thumbnail Encoding (0.6.1+)

  • Objective-C
objective
// WebP image thumbnail encoding UIImage *image; NSData *thumbnailWebpData = [[SDImageWebPCoder sharedCoder] encodedDataWithImage:image format:SDImageFormatWebP options:@{SDImageCoderEncodeMaxPixelSize : @(CGSizeMake(200, 200))}]; // v0.6.1 feature, encoding max pixel size
  • Swift
swift
// WebP image thumbnail encoding let image: UIImage let thumbnailWebpData = SDImageWebPCoder.shared.encodedData(with: image, format: .webP, options: [.encodeMaxPixelSize: CGSize(width: 200, height: 200)]) // v0.6.1 feature, encoding max pixel size

See more documentation in SDWebImage Wiki - Coders

Animated WebP Encoding (0.10+)

  • Objective-c
objective
// Animated encoding NSMutableArray<SDImageFrames *> *frames = [NSMutableArray array]; for (size_t i = 0; i < images.count; i++) { SDImageFrame *frame = [SDImageFrame frameWithImage:images[i] duration:0.1]; [frames appendObject:frame]; } NSData *awebpData = [[SDImageWebPCoder sharedCoder] encodedDataWithFrames:frames loopCount:0 format:SDImageFormatWebP options:nil];
  • Swift
swift
// Animated encoding var frames: [SDImageFrame] = [] for i in 0..<images.count { let frame = SDImageFrame(image: images[i], duration: 0.1) frames.append(frame) } let awebpData = SDImageWebPCoder.shared.encodedData(with: frames, loopCount: 0, format: .webP, options: nil)

Advanced WebP codec options (0.8+)

The WebP codec libwebp we use, supports some advanced control options for encoding/decoding. You can pass them to libwebp by using the wrapper top level API:

  • Objective-C
objective
UIImage *image; SDImageCoderOptions *options = @{SDImageCoderEncodeWebPMethod: @(0), SDImageCoderEncodeWebPAlphaCompression: @(100)}; NSData *data = [SDImageWebPCoder.sharedCoder encodedDataWithImage:image format:SDImageFormatWebP options:options]; // Will translate into: // config->method = 0; // config->alpha_quality = 100;
  • Swift
swift
let image: UIImage let options = [.encodeWebPMethod: 0, .encodeWebPAlphaCompression: 100] let data = SDImageWebPCoder.shared.encodedData(with: image, format: .webP, options: options) // Will translate into: // config->method = 0; // config->alpha_quality = 100;

Example

To run the example project, clone the repo, and run pod install from the root directory first. Then open SDWebImageWebPCoder.xcworkspace.

This is a demo to show how to use WebP and animated WebP images via SDWebImageWebPCoderExample target.

Screenshot

<img src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/SDWebImage/SDWebImageWebPCoder/master/Example/Screenshot/WebPDemo.png" width="300" />

These WebP images are from WebP Gallery and GIF vs APNG vs WebP

Author

Bogdan Poplauschi
DreamPiggy

License

SDWebImageWebPCoder is available under the MIT license. See the LICENSE file for more info.

Contributors

Showing top 10 contributors by commit count.

View all contributors on GitHub →

This article is auto-generated from SDWebImage/SDWebImageWebPCoder via the GitHub API.Last fetched: 6/14/2026