Model comparison · YOLO26 vs YOLO11
YOLO26 vs YOLO11
Start with YOLO11 for established integrations; consider YOLO26 for higher published COCO accuracy and NMS-free exports. Compare the size tiers below, then test speed on your own device.
mAP comparison
YOLO26
- Nano 40.9
- Small 48.6
- Medium 53.1
- Large 55.0
- Extra large 57.5
YOLO11
- Nano 39.5
- Small 47.0
- Medium 51.5
- Large 53.4
- Extra large 54.7
Accuracy and size, tier by tier
Each row pairs the equivalent rung of both size ladders, so the numbers sit side by side at comparable capacity. Every figure is the model authors’ own.
- COCO mAP50-95 @ 640px
- mAP: higher is better
- Params (M): lower is better
| Tier | YOLO26 | YOLO11 | Δ mAP | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Model | mAP | Params | Model | mAP | Params | ||
| Nano | YOLO26n | 40.9 | 2.4M | YOLO11n | 39.5 | 2.6M | +1.4 |
| Small | YOLO26s | 48.6 | 9.5M | YOLO11s | 47.0 | 9.4M | +1.6 |
| Medium | YOLO26m | 53.1 | 20.4M | YOLO11m | 51.5 | 20.1M | +1.6 |
| Large | YOLO26l | 55.0 | 24.8M | YOLO11l | 53.4 | 25.3M | +1.6 |
| Extra large | YOLO26x | 57.5 | 55.7M | YOLO11x | 54.7 | 56.9M | +2.8 |
Δ mAP is YOLO26 minus YOLO11: positive means YOLO26 is ahead at that tier. Sources: YOLO26 docs · YOLO11 docs
Additional information
YOLO26 posts the higher published COCO mAP at all 5 matched size tiers, averaging 1.80 mAP ahead of YOLO11. The gap is widest at the extra large tier, where YOLO26 leads by 2.8 mAP. At the top of each range, YOLO26 reaches 57.5 mAP against 54.7.
56% fewer parameters, same accuracy. YOLO26l reaches 55.0 mAP from 24.8M parameters, matching or beating YOLO11x at 54.7 mAP from 56.9M.
Parameter count is not latency. It is a good proxy for download size and memory, but throughput depends on your hardware, batch size and export format, so measure on your own target.
YOLO26
NMS-free, end-to-end, and tuned for the edge.
- Released
- 2026 · Ultralytics
- License
- AGPL-3.0
- Framework
- Ultralytics (PyTorch)
- Tasks
- Detect, Segment, Semantic segmentation, Depth, Classify, Pose, OBB, Open-vocabulary
A single-stage detector that outputs final boxes directly, with no separate NMS cleanup step, so it runs faster on CPUs and edge devices while keeping top accuracy.
Download YOLO26 weights →YOLO11
The best-supported all-round default across five tasks.
- Released
- 2024 · Ultralytics
- License
- AGPL-3.0
- Framework
- Ultralytics (PyTorch)
- Tasks
- Detect, Segment, Classify, Pose, OBB
An anchor-free, single-pass detector that predicts objects in one shot across five vision tasks, giving a strong balance of speed and accuracy for everyday production use.
Download YOLO11 weights →YOLO26 and YOLO11 against the whole lineage
YOLO26 and YOLO11 against every other detector here, on one shared scale. The rest are dimmed; hover any row to bring it back.
| Model | Released | mAP range | Params range | Licence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| YOLO26 | 2026 | 40.9 to 57.5 | 2.4M to 55.7M | AGPL-3.0 |
| YOLO12 | 2025 | 40.6 to 55.2 | 2.6M to 59.1M | AGPL-3.0 |
| YOLO11 | 2024 | 39.5 to 54.7 | 2.6M to 56.9M | AGPL-3.0 |
| YOLOv10 | 2024 | 38.5 to 54.4 | 2.3M to 29.5M | AGPL-3.0 |
| YOLOv9 | 2024 | 38.3 to 55.6 | 2.0M to 58.1M | GPL-3.0 |
| YOLOv8 | 2023 | 37.3 to 53.9 | 3.2M to 68.2M | AGPL-3.0 |
| YOLOv5 (v5u) | 2020 | 34.3 to 53.2 | 2.6M to 97.2M | AGPL-3.0 |
Frequently asked questions
- Is Ultralytics YOLO26 better than Ultralytics YOLO11?
- On published COCO accuracy, YOLO26. It leads 5 of the 5 size tiers where both families publish a figure, by an average of 1.8 mAP. The gap is widest at the extra large tier, where YOLO26 is ahead by 2.8 mAP. Ultralytics YOLO26 tops out at 57.5 mAP and Ultralytics YOLO11 at 54.7. "Better" still depends on your constraint, though: accuracy is one axis and parameter count, task coverage and licence are the others, all of which are in the table above.
- What is the difference between Ultralytics YOLO26 and Ultralytics YOLO11?
- Ultralytics YOLO26 (Ultralytics, 2026) and Ultralytics YOLO11 (Ultralytics, 2024) are 2 years apart. NMS-free, end-to-end, and tuned for the edge. The best-supported all-round default across five tasks. Task coverage differs too: Ultralytics YOLO26 supports 8 (Detect, Segment, Semantic segmentation, Depth, Classify, Pose, OBB, Open-vocabulary) against Ultralytics YOLO11's 5 (Detect, Segment, Classify, Pose, OBB).
- Which is smaller, Ultralytics YOLO26 or Ultralytics YOLO11?
- YOLO26 gets more out of each parameter. YOLO26l reaches 55.0 mAP on 24.8M parameters, matching or beating YOLO11x at 56.9M: about 56% fewer parameters for the same accuracy. That is the comparison worth making, since it is the same result from a smaller checkpoint.
- Is Ultralytics YOLO26 faster than Ultralytics YOLO11?
- Nothing on this page is a speed measurement, and it would be dishonest to imply one: every figure here is published COCO accuracy and parameter count. Parameters are a rough guide to inference cost within one family, but they do not transfer across architectures, and the post-processing step matters as much as the backbone. Export both to ONNX and measure on your own hardware and footage, which is the only comparison that predicts what you will actually get.
- Are Ultralytics YOLO26 and Ultralytics YOLO11 free for commercial use?
- Both ship under AGPL-3.0, so the licence is not a tiebreaker here: choose on accuracy and size. AGPL-3.0 is free for open-source, research and internal use, but a closed-source product or paid service needs an Ultralytics Enterprise licence. Read the licence text before you ship; this is a plain reading of it, not legal advice.
Every matchup
Looking for the weights themselves? Download any of these checkpoints from the model-weights hub, or see how the trackers behind them compare in the YOLO tracker benchmarks.