Segment Anything 2
Foundation model for promptable visual segmentation in images and videos with streaming memory.
About
SAM 2 extends Meta's Segment Anything Model from images to video by treating an image as a one-frame video. Users prompt with clicks, boxes, or masks to select an object, and the model segments it and tracks the mask across frames using a transformer architecture with streaming memory, which processes video sequentially in real time instead of holding entire clips in memory. Four checkpoint sizes on a Hiera backbone run from tiny at 38.9M parameters to large at 224.4M. Alongside the model, Meta released SA-V, described as the largest video segmentation dataset to date, built with a model-in-the-loop data engine. The SAM 2.1 checkpoints improved accuracy further, with the large model reaching 79.5 J&F on the SA-V test set at about 39.5 FPS on an A100 GPU. Code and weights are open under the Apache 2.0 license, and the model is widely used for video object tracking, interactive annotation, robotics, and editing tools.
Should you use Segment Anything 2?
Pick it when
Pick SAM 2 when you click or box an object once and need its mask carried through a video, for interactive annotation, rotoscoping, or robotics, with Apache 2.0 weights and a tiny-to-large size choice to fit your GPU.
Look elsewhere when
Skip it if you want objects found from a text description, since SAM 2 needs a point, box, or mask prompt; SAM 3 or Grounded SAM 2 handle that. For still images in older tooling, the original SAM may already be integrated.
Alternatives to Segment Anything 2
- SAM 3
Finds and tracks every instance from a text phrase or exemplar, not just the object you click, but needs Python 3.12, CUDA 12.6, and a custom license.
- Grounded SAM 2
Puts Grounding DINO in front of SAM 2 so text prompts select objects automatically, at the cost of a second model and an 8 GB pipeline.
- Track Anything
Ready click-and-correct video interface for annotation and object removal, easier for non-coders, but it chains the original SAM with a separate tracker.
- CoTracker
Tracks individual points rather than masks, useful for motion and 3D reconstruction, but its main weights are CC-BY-NC non-commercial.
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Details
- Price
- Free
- Platform
- Local/Desktop
- Difficulty
- Intermediate (3/5)
- License
- Apache-2.0
- Added
- May 7, 2026