Qualitative Comparison of Vision and Vision-Language Models in Object Detection: Capabilities and Challenges

Advancements in deep learning and computer vision have greatly enhanced object detection, playing a vital role in applications such as autonomous driving and surveillance. This study explores the trade-offs between two distinct YOLO model architectures: the vision-only models, referred to as pre-YOLO-World, and a vision-language model known as YOLO-World. While the pre-YOLO-World models are renowned for their speed and accuracy, the YOLO-World model integrates large language models to enhance contextual comprehension, enabling open-vocabulary object detection. This paper provides a qualitative analysis of their strengths and limitations, focusing on speed, accuracy, adaptability, computational requirements, and application scenarios. By contrasting these architectures, we aim to offer insights into their potential roles in evolving object detection paradigms and to guide practitioners in selecting models suited to specific use cases.