[ascorbic]

For those you can often use animated WebP, or even APNG. They all have close to universal support and are usually much smaller.

[tylertyler]

If you need animated images in emails or text messages, GIF is the only supported format that will play the animation. Because of the size restrictions for these messaging systems the inefficient compression of GIFs is a major issue.

[prmoustache]

I am not sure "need" is the right word here.

[adzm]

AVIF works here also. Discord started supporting it for custom emoji.