When to use GIF instead of video

A short UI demo, bug reproduction, or product interaction can work well as GIF because the viewer sees motion immediately without dealing with a player.

The best GIFs isolate one action and stay short enough to loop naturally.

If the clip is long, detailed, or needs to stay small, MP4 or WebM is usually the right answer. GIF is much less efficient and uses a limited color palette.

That is why large GIFs grow fast even when the original video was lightweight.

Keep the clip around 2 to 4 seconds, use modest width, and avoid unnecessary frame rate. Those three changes do more than trying to optimize after the GIF is already huge.

The Video to GIF tool is designed for these short browser-side conversions.