Video Format Comparison

AV1 vs VP9: Next-Gen Open Video Codecs Compared

AV1 is the royalty-free successor to VP9, developed by the Alliance for Open Media (Google, Apple, Netflix, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and others). It achieves 30–50% better compression than VP9 at the cost of dramatically slower software encoding. VP9 remains relevant as the established, faster-to-encode alternative while AV1 hardware encoders are still becoming mainstream. YouTube now re-encodes all uploads to AV1; Netflix uses it for 4K streams.

AV1vsVP9

Quick Verdict

Use AV1 when…

Use AV1 for new video content you're encoding for long-term storage or web delivery — it's 30–50% more efficient than VP9 and the future direction for royalty-free video.

Use VP9 when…

Use VP9 when encoding speed is critical, when hardware AV1 encoders aren't available, or when you need broad compatibility with 2018–2021 era devices that lack AV1 hardware decode.

AV1 vs VP9: Feature Comparison

Feature	AV1	VP9
Compression vs H.264	~60% more efficient	~45% more efficient
Compression vs VP9	~30% more efficient	Baseline
Royalties	Royalty-free (Alliance for Open Media)	Royalty-free (Google)
Software encoding speed	Very slow (libaom)	Slow (libvpx-vp9)
Hardware encoding	Intel Arc, NVIDIA RTX 40-series, Apple M3+	Some GPUs (less common)
Browser support	Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari (macOS 13+)	Chrome, Firefox, Edge, partial Safari
YouTube use	All new uploads re-encoded to AV1	Legacy content and fallback
Streaming services	Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Prime	YouTube, Vimeo

When AV1 wins

✓Compression vs H.264: ~60% more efficient
✓Compression vs VP9: ~30% more efficient
✓Royalties: Royalty-free (Alliance for Open Media)

When VP9 wins

✓Compression vs H.264: ~45% more efficient
✓Compression vs VP9: Baseline
✓Royalties: Royalty-free (Google)

Frequently asked questions

Should I encode video to AV1 or VP9 in 2024?

For web delivery: AV1 if encoding time allows (use hardware encoder if available) — better quality, smaller files, growing support. VP9 if you need faster encoding and are targeting older devices. For personal storage: AV1 is excellent — encode once, small files, great quality. FFmpeg AV1: ffmpeg -i input -c:v libaom-av1 -crf 30 -b:v 0 output.webm.

Why is AV1 encoding so slow?

AV1's reference software encoder (libaom) prioritises compression efficiency over speed, making it 50–100× slower than H.264 for equivalent quality. Hardware encoders (NVIDIA RTX 40xx, Intel Arc, Apple M3) are dramatically faster. SVT-AV1 (Intel's open-source encoder) achieves real-time software encoding with good quality at the cost of some compression efficiency.