Who Maintains the libavif Library?

This article provides a clear overview of the organization and key contributors responsible for maintaining libavif, the official reference library for encoding and decoding AVIF images. It details the primary group behind its development and the major technology companies that drive its continuous updates.

The primary organization behind the libavif library is the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia). Organized as a joint venture of leading technology companies, AOMedia is a non-profit consortium dedicated to defining and developing open, royalty-free technologies for media delivery. The official source code for libavif is hosted and managed under AOMedia’s GitHub organization.

While AOMedia is the governing body, Google is the primary driver and active maintainer of the libavif codebase. Engineers from Google, particularly those associated with the Chrome web browser and Android teams, write the majority of the code, manage pull requests, and release official updates to ensure the library remains secure and highly optimized.

Other prominent tech companies within the AOMedia consortium—such as Netflix, Microsoft, and Mozilla—also contribute to the project. Their involvement ensures the library remains highly compatible across different operating systems, web browsers, and media pipelines, solidifying libavif as the industry-standard implementation for handling AVIF files.