PCX vs SVG
A detailed comparison of PCX Image and SVG Vector Image — file size, quality, compatibility, and which format to choose for your workflow.
PCX Image
Raster & Vector ImagesPCX (PiCture eXchange) is a legacy raster image format created by ZSoft for their PC Paintbrush program. It was one of the first widely supported image formats on IBM PC compatibles and uses simple run-length encoding compression.
About PCX filesSVG Vector Image
Raster & Vector ImagesSVG is an XML-based vector image format that scales to any resolution without quality loss. It is the standard for web icons, logos, and illustrations that need to look sharp on all screen sizes.
About SVG filesStrengths Comparison
PCX Strengths
- Simple format — easy to parse in any language.
- RLE compression keeps flat-color images compact.
- Historic archive format for 1985-1995 PC art.
- Stable since 1985 with no breaking changes.
SVG Strengths
- Resolution-independent — crisp at any size, from 16px icon to 4K billboard.
- Tiny file sizes for flat graphics, logos, and UI illustrations.
- Editable with any text editor; programmatically manipulable via DOM.
- Supports interactivity, CSS styling, and JavaScript inside the image.
- Accessible — text inside SVG is readable by screen readers.
Limitations
PCX Limitations
- Legacy — no new content created as PCX in 2026.
- Inefficient for photographs (RLE is wrong algorithm).
- Limited to 24-bit color depth.
- Web browsers do not display PCX.
SVG Limitations
- Not suitable for photographs or complex raster imagery.
- Uploading user-provided SVG is risky — embedded scripts are an XSS vector.
- Complex SVGs with thousands of paths render more slowly than a PNG equivalent.
- Inconsistent rendering across browsers for edge-case features (filters, gradients).
- No native concept of layers or groups for design-tool round-tripping.
Technical Specifications
| Specification | PCX | SVG |
|---|---|---|
| MIME type | image/x-pcx | image/svg+xml |
| Extension | .pcx | — |
| Header | 128 bytes fixed | — |
| Compression | Run-Length Encoding (RLE) | Gzipped variant is .svgz |
| Creator | ZSoft Corporation (1985) | — |
| Format | — | XML (text-based) |
| Current version | — | SVG 2 (W3C Recommendation, 2018) |
| Resolution | — | Unlimited (vector) |
| Animation | — | SMIL, CSS, JavaScript |
Typical File Sizes
PCX
- Simple clipart 2-40 KB
- VGA-era screenshot (320×200) 30-80 KB
- Scanned page 200 KB - 2 MB
SVG
- Simple icon 200 B – 2 KB
- Company logo 2–10 KB
- Complex illustration 20–100 KB
- Data-visualization chart 50–500 KB
Ready to convert?
Convert between PCX and SVG online, free, and without installing anything. Encrypted upload, automatic deletion after 2 hours.
Frequently Asked Questions
PCX (PCX Image) is an image format used to store raster graphics — a two-dimensional grid of pixels describing a picture. It is part of the raster & vector images family and designed around a specific trade-off between file size, visual fidelity, and feature support (transparency, colour depth, compression type). Photographers, web designers, and content creators choose PCX when its particular strengths match the publishing target.
SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) is an XML-based vector image format maintained by the W3C since 1999. Unlike raster formats, SVG images scale to any size without quality loss, making them perfect for responsive web design.
Most desktop photo viewers (Windows Photos, macOS Preview, GIMP, Photoshop, Affinity Photo) open PCX natively. On mobile, iOS Photos and Google Photos display PCX in the gallery when supported by the OS. If the format is rare or new, convert to JPG or PNG first — both are universally readable — using our PCX to JPG or PCX to PNG converter.
SVG files open in all web browsers, Adobe Illustrator, Inkscape (free), Figma, and most modern design tools. You can also open SVGs with any text editor since they are XML-based.
Upload the PCX to KaijuConverter and pick a target format (JPG, PNG, WebP, HEIC, TIFF, BMP, SVG, PDF). The conversion runs in the browser via ImageMagick and returns a download in seconds. No account or installation required; both input and output delete automatically within two hours.
It depends on the task. JPG is the smallest file size for photographs; PNG is lossless with transparency; PCX has its own niche that may favour colour depth, animation, or encoding efficiency over one or both of those. For the final web publish, test all three and measure file size plus visible quality on real content.