Do I use <img>, <object>, or <embed> for SVG files?

<object> and <embed> have an interesting property: they make it possible to obtain a reference to SVG document from outer document (taking same-origin policy into account). The reference can then be used to animate the SVG, change its stylesheets, etc.

Given

<object id="svg1" data="/static/image.svg" type="image/svg+xml"></object>

You can then do things like

document.getElementById("svg1").addEventListener("load", function() {
    var doc = this.getSVGDocument();
    var rect = doc.querySelector("rect"); // suppose our image contains a <rect>
    rect.setAttribute("fill", "green");
});

I can recommend the SVG Primer (published by the W3C), which covers this topic: http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/IG/resources/svgprimer.html#SVG_in_HTML

If you use <object> then you get raster fallback for free*:

<object data="your.svg" type="image/svg+xml">
  <img src="yourfallback.jpg" />
</object>

*) Well, not quite for free, because some browsers download both resources, see Larry's suggestion below for how to get around that.

2014 update:

• If you want a non-interactive svg, use <img> with script fallbacks to png version (for older IE and android < 3). One clean and simple way to do that:

  <img src="your.svg" onerror="this.src='your.png'">.

  This will behave much like a GIF image, and if your browser supports declarative animations (SMIL) then those will play.

• If you want an interactive svg, use either <iframe> or <object>.

• If you need to provide older browsers the ability to use an svg plugin, then use <embed>.

• For svg in css background-image and similar properties, modernizr is one choice for switching to fallback images, another is depending on multiple backgrounds to do it automatically:

  div {
      background-image: url(fallback.png);
      background-image: url(your.svg), none;
  }
  

  Note: the multiple backgrounds strategy doesn't work on Android 2.3 because it supports multiple backgrounds but not svg.

An additional good read is this blogpost on svg fallbacks.

From IE9 and above you can use SVG in a ordinary IMG tag..

https://caniuse.com/svg-img

<img src="/static/image.svg">