Is YOLO26 better than YOLOv10?

On published COCO accuracy, YOLO26. It leads 5 of the 5 size tiers where both families publish a figure, by an average of 2.3 mAP. The gap is widest at the extra large tier, where YOLO26 is ahead by 3.1 mAP. YOLO26 tops out at 57.5 mAP and YOLOv10 at 54.4. "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 YOLO26 and YOLOv10?

YOLO26 (Ultralytics, 2026) and YOLOv10 (Tsinghua University (THU-MIG), 2024) are 2 years apart. NMS-free, end-to-end, and tuned for the edge. The first popular NMS-free, end-to-end YOLO. Task coverage differs too: YOLO26 supports 8 (Detect, Segment, Semantic segmentation, Depth, Classify, Pose, OBB, Open-vocabulary) against YOLOv10's 1 (Detect).

Which is smaller, YOLO26 or YOLOv10?

YOLO26 gets more out of each parameter. YOLO26l reaches 55.0 mAP on 24.8M parameters, matching or beating YOLOv10x at 29.5M: about 16% fewer parameters for the same accuracy. That is the comparison worth making, since it is the same result from a smaller checkpoint.

Is YOLO26 faster than YOLOv10?

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 YOLO26 and YOLOv10 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.

Model comparison · YOLO26 vs YOLOv10

YOLO26 vs YOLOv10

A size-tier-by-size-tier comparison of Ultralytics YOLO26 and YOLOv10: published COCO accuracy, parameter counts, licensing and which one to reach for. Every figure is the model authors' own, linked to its source.

CompareYOLO26

AgainstYOLOv10

16%fewer params

mAP comparison

YOLO26YOLOv10

YOLO26

Nano 40.9
Small 48.6
Medium 53.1
Large 55.0
Extra large 57.5

YOLOv10

Nano 38.5
Small 46.3
Medium 51.1
Large 53.2
Extra large 54.4

COCO mAP at 640px, as published by each model’s authors. The y axis spans 35.5 to 60.5 rather than starting at zero, so small differences stay visible. Points are the published checkpoints; the joining lines are for reading order only.

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

YOLO26 and YOLOv10 compared at each size tier: published COCO mAP50-95 at 640px and parameter counts in millions.
Tier	YOLO26			YOLOv10			Δ mAP
Tier	Model	mAP	Params	Model	mAP	Params	Δ mAP
Nano	YOLO26n	40.9	2.4M	YOLOv10n	38.5	2.3M	+2.4
Small	YOLO26s	48.6	9.5M	YOLOv10s	46.3	7.2M	+2.3
Medium	YOLO26m	53.1	20.4M	YOLOv10m	51.1	15.4M	+2.0
Large	YOLO26l	55.0	24.8M	YOLOv10l	53.2	24.4M	+1.8
Extra large	YOLO26x	57.5	55.7M	YOLOv10x	54.4	29.5M	+3.1

Δ mAP is YOLO26 minus YOLOv10: positive means YOLO26 is ahead at that tier. Sources: YOLO26 docs · YOLOv10 docs · YOLOv10 paper

YOLOv10 also ships YOLOv10b, which sits between the rungs above and has no direct counterpart in YOLO26, so it is left out of the paired rows rather than matched to an unequal one.

Additional information

YOLO26 posts the higher published COCO mAP at all 5 matched size tiers, averaging 2.32 mAP ahead of YOLOv10. The gap is widest at the extra large tier, where YOLO26 leads by 3.1 mAP. At the top of each range, YOLO26 reaches 57.5 mAP against 54.4.
16% fewer parameters, same accuracy. YOLO26l reaches 55.0 mAP from 24.8M parameters, matching or beating YOLOv10x at 54.4 mAP from 29.5M.
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 →

YOLOv10

The first popular NMS-free, end-to-end YOLO.

Released: 2024 · Tsinghua University (THU-MIG)
License: AGPL-3.0
Framework: Built on Ultralytics (PyTorch)
Tasks: Detect

The first widely used YOLO that skips the NMS post-processing step, using paired training heads so inference is truly end to end and low latency.

Download YOLOv10 weights →

YOLO26 and YOLOv10 against the whole lineage

YOLO26 and YOLOv10 against every other detector here, on one shared scale. The rest are dimmed; hover any row to bring it back.

Every YOLO detector in this section, with release year, publisher, published COCO mAP50-95 range at 640px, parameter-count range and licence.
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 YOLO26 better than YOLOv10?: On published COCO accuracy, YOLO26. It leads 5 of the 5 size tiers where both families publish a figure, by an average of 2.3 mAP. The gap is widest at the extra large tier, where YOLO26 is ahead by 3.1 mAP. YOLO26 tops out at 57.5 mAP and YOLOv10 at 54.4. "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 YOLO26 and YOLOv10?: YOLO26 (Ultralytics, 2026) and YOLOv10 (Tsinghua University (THU-MIG), 2024) are 2 years apart. NMS-free, end-to-end, and tuned for the edge. The first popular NMS-free, end-to-end YOLO. Task coverage differs too: YOLO26 supports 8 (Detect, Segment, Semantic segmentation, Depth, Classify, Pose, OBB, Open-vocabulary) against YOLOv10's 1 (Detect).
Which is smaller, YOLO26 or YOLOv10?: YOLO26 gets more out of each parameter. YOLO26l reaches 55.0 mAP on 24.8M parameters, matching or beating YOLOv10x at 29.5M: about 16% fewer parameters for the same accuracy. That is the comparison worth making, since it is the same result from a smaller checkpoint.
Is YOLO26 faster than YOLOv10?: 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 YOLO26 and YOLOv10 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.