Pyyan / Compare / YOLOv12 vs YOLO26 vs RTMDet
YOLOv12 vs YOLO26 vs RTMDet
3 of 5Object Detection · verified 13 Aug 2026
| Specification | YOLOv12 | YOLO26 | RTMDet |
|---|---|---|---|
| Summary | Attention-centric YOLO, still widely deployed. | The latest in the line most people mean by object detection. | Pure throughput, and an MIT licence. |
| COCO mAP | ~55 | ~55 | ~52 |
| Speed | Very high | Very high | 300+ |
| Licence | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Family | Single stage | Single stage | Single stage |
| Open vocabulary | No | No | No |
| Released | 2025 | 2026 | 2022 |
| Category | Object Detection | Object Detection | Object Detection |
| Official | Ultralytics ↗ | Ultralytics ↗ | OpenMMLab ↗ |
Highlighted rows are where these differ.
YOLOv12
- Attention added to the classic single-stage design
- Same licensing consideration as YOLO26
Best for teams already on the YOLO toolchain.
YOLO26
- Strong on Jetson, Snapdragon and ARM CPUs
- AGPL-3.0: open-source your derivative work or buy a licence
Best for edge and mobile deployment.
RTMDet
- Wins on raw speed where accuracy is sufficient
- MIT, so no derivative-work obligation
Best for high frame-rate video.