Image to Base64: When to Use It (and When Not To)
Understand Base64 trade-offs: speed, size, caching, and privacy.
Base64 is convenient—embed images inline without extra requests. But it increases payload size by ~33% and can bloat HTML if overused. Use it for tiny assets (icons, placeholders) or environments where hosting files is hard. For larger images, keep standard URLs and leverage browser caching.
Client-side conversions with FileReader are private and instant. For UX, show a preview, file size before/after, and an easy ‘Copy Data URI’ button. Explain limits: if your image is 2MB PNG, Base64 may not be ideal. Give alternatives like WebP compression and lazy loading. Educate first, then offer the tool.
Client-side conversions with FileReader are private and instant. For UX, show a preview, file size before/after, and an easy ‘Copy Data URI’ button. Explain limits: if your image is 2MB PNG, Base64 may not be ideal. Give alternatives like WebP compression and lazy loading. Educate first, then offer the tool.