Building of Informatics, Technology and Science
Vol 8 No 1 (2026): June 2026

Comparative Evaluation of CNN, Random Forest, and SVM for Deepfake Image Classification

Dyo Arya Purnama (Universitas Sriwijaya, Palembang)
Idris Sonny (Universitas Sriwijaya, Palembang)
Ongki Juliandra (Universitas Sriwijaya, Palembang)
Dhafin Rizky Trisandy (Universitas Sriwijaya, Palembang)
Ken Ditha Tania (Universitas Sriwijaya, Palembang)
Alsella Meiriza (Universitas Sriwijaya, Palembang)



Article Info

Publish Date
30 Jun 2026

Abstract

Deepfake image detection remains a challenging image classification problem because the effectiveness of a detection model can vary according to the classification approach and image representation used. This study comparatively evaluates three classification algorithms, namely Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), Random Forest, and Support Vector Machine (SVM), for distinguishing real facial images from deepfake images. The dataset consists of two classes, real and deepfake images, which undergo preprocessing through resizing to 32 × 32 pixels and pixel normalization from 0–255 to 0–1. The preprocessed dataset is divided into 80% training data and 20% testing data. CNN performs feature learning through convolutional layers, whereas Random Forest and SVM perform classification based on the prepared image feature representation. Model performance is evaluated using accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score on the testing data. The experimental results show that CNN achieves the highest performance, with 91% accuracy, 93% precision, 88% recall, and 91% F1-score, followed by SVM with 77% accuracy and Random Forest with 75% accuracy. Thus, under the experimental conditions of this study, CNN provides better classification performance than the two conventional machine-learning algorithms. However, the result is limited to the dataset, 32 × 32 pixel input representation, and experimental configuration used in this study; therefore, the 91% accuracy should not be interpreted as evidence of general superiority across other datasets or deepfake generation techniques. These findings provide an empirical comparison of the three approaches and highlight the need for cross-dataset and higher-resolution evaluation in subsequent research.

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Journal Info

Abbrev

bits

Publisher

Subject

Computer Science & IT

Description

Building of Informatics, Technology and Science (BITS) is an open access media in publishing scientific articles that contain the results of research in information technology and computers. Paper that enters this journal will be checked for plagiarism and peer-rewiew first to maintain its quality. ...