Support Vector Machine vs K Nearest Neighbours

Aspect

Support Vector Machine(SVM)

K Nearest Neighbour(KNN)

Basis

Based on optimal hyperplane that maximizes the margin between classes. 

Classify a data point based on the majority class of its nearest neighbours.

Algorithm Type

Discriminative algorithm, learn by analyzing the differences between classes.

Lazy Learning, stores all the training data and classifies new points based on their similarity to the stored data points at prediction time.

Training Type

Slower

Faster as there is no explicit learning

Decision Boundary

Can be either linear or non-linear

Non-linear

Memory Usage

Lower

Flexible, adapts to data distribution

Prediction Time

Faster

Slower with large dataset

Performance with Imbalanced Data

Handles well

May or may not perform well

Hyperparameter Sensitivity

Very less parameters

More parameters depending on the value of K

Interpretability

Less interpretable,due to the complex nature of their decision boundaries

More interpretable,because the classification relies on the nearest neighbors.

Scalability

More scalable

Less scalable

Example

Text Classification, Image classification, Bioinformatics, etc.

Recommendation Systems, Anomaly Detection, Predictive maintenance, etc.

SVM vs KNN in Machine Learning

Support Vector Machine(SVM) and K Nearest Neighbours(KNN) both are very popular supervised machine learning algorithms used for classification and regression purpose. Both SVM and KNN play an important role in Supervised Learning.

Table of Content

  • Support Vector Machine(SVM)
  • K Nearest Neighbour(KNN)
  • Support Vector Machine vs K Nearest Neighbours

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Support Vector Machine(SVM)

Support Vector Machine is a effective supervised machine learning algorithm used for classification and regression tasks. The main objective of SVM is to find an optimal hyperplane that best separates the data into different classes in a high-dimensional space. The hyperplane is chosen to maximize the margin, which is the distance between the hyperplane and the nearest data points (support vectors) of each class. Kernel functions are used for transforming lower dimensional input space to higher dimensional output....

K Nearest Neighbour(KNN)

KNN is a simple and a very effective supervised machine learning algorithm. It belongs to the family of instance-based, non-parametric algorithms, meaning it makes predictions based on the similarity of input data points. KNN basically makes predictions based on the similarity of data points in the sample space. The performance of KNN is basically based on the choice of K. KNN works by memorizing the entire training dataset. When a new data point is given for prediction, KNN looks at the k-nearest data points in the training set based on a specified distance metric (commonly Euclidean distance)....

Support Vector Machine vs K Nearest Neighbours

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Conclusion

In practical use, KNN and SVM both are very important supervised learning algorithms. The choice between these two deoends on multiple factors like the nature of dataset, the size of dataset and other specifications of the problem. Ultimately the selection must be guided by the constraints of the problem....