Home
Blog
Artificial Intelligence
Naive Bayes Explained: Function, Advantages & Disadvantages, Applications in 2023

Naive Bayes Explained: Function, Advantages & Disadvantages, Applications in 2023

Q: 1. What are the advantages and disadvantages of Naive Bayes?

One of the main advantages of Naive Bayes is its speed and efficiency, even with large datasets. It performs well in text-based applications and requires less training data. However, its main disadvantage is the assumption of feature independence, which is rarely true in real-world scenarios. This can sometimes lead to lower accuracy in complex datasets.

Q: 2. Why is Bayes classifier naive?

The Bayes classifier is called "naive" because it assumes that all features are independent of each other, which is rarely true in real-world data. This assumption makes calculations simple and efficient, allowing naive Bayes in machine learning to work well even with small datasets. Despite its simplicity, it performs surprisingly well for many classification tasks, such as spam filtering and sentiment analysis.

Q: 3. Is Naive Bayes lazy or eager?

Naive Bayes in machine learning is an eager learning algorithm, meaning it builds a model during the training phase and makes predictions quickly. Unlike lazy learning algorithms, which store training data and delay processing until prediction time, naive Bayes creates a probability-based model upfront. This makes it efficient for large datasets and real-time applications.

Q: 4. What is the basic assumption in the case of the Naive Bayes classifier?

The basic assumption of naive Bayes in machine learning is that all features used for classification are independent of each other. This means that the presence of one feature does not affect the presence of another, which simplifies probability calculations. While this assumption is often unrealistic, naive Bayes still performs well in many practical scenarios.

Q: 5. Is feature scaling required in Naive Bayes?

No, feature scaling is not required in naive Bayes in machine learning because it works with probability distributions rather than distance-based calculations. Unlike algorithms like logistic regression or KNN, naive Bayes does not get affected by different feature scales. This makes it easy to apply directly to raw data without normalization or standardization.

Q: 6. What is the Naive Bayes method in data mining?

The Naive Bayes method in data mining is a classification technique based on Bayes' theorem, assuming that features are independent. It is widely used for tasks like text classification, spam detection, and recommendation systems. Due to its simplicity and efficiency, it is a popular choice for analyzing large datasets in data mining.

Q: 7. When to use Naive Bayes in machine learning?

Naive Bayes in machine learning is best used when you need a fast, simple, and effective classifier for large datasets. It works well for text classification problems like spam filtering, sentiment analysis, and document categorization. It is also useful when feature independence is a reasonable assumption or when a small amount of training data is available.

Q: 8. What are the advantages and disadvantages of Naive Bayes?

One of the main advantages of Naive Bayes is its speed and efficiency, even with large datasets. It performs well in text-based applications and requires less training data. However, its main disadvantage is the assumption of feature independence, which is rarely true in real-world scenarios. This can sometimes lead to lower accuracy in complex datasets.

Q: 9. What is the benefit of Naive Bayes?

The main benefit of Naive Bayes is its ability to make quick and accurate predictions with minimal computational resources. It is easy to implement and performs well with high-dimensional data, such as text classification tasks. Despite its naive assumption, it often delivers competitive results in real-world applications.

By Pavan Vadapalli

Updated on Apr 04, 2025 | 9 min read | 63.9k views

Table of Contents

Naive Bayes is a machine learning algorithm we use to solve classification problems. It is based on the Bayes Theorem. It is one of the simplest yet powerful ML algorithms in use and finds applications in many industries.

Suppose you have to solve a classification problem and have created the features and generated the hypothesis, but your superiors want to see the model. You have numerous data points (lakhs of data points) and many variables to train the dataset. The best solution for this situation would be to use the Naive Bayes classifier, which is quite faster in comparison to other classification algorithms.

In this article, we’ll discuss this algorithm in detail and find out how it works. We’ll also discuss its advantages and disadvantages, along with its real-world applications, to understand how essential this algorithm is.

Boost your career with our Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning Courses and gain hands-on experience with real-world projects. Start learning today!

Let’s get started:

Naive Bayes Explained

Naive Bayes uses the Bayes’ Theorem and assumes that all predictors are independent. In other words, this classifier assumes that the presence of one particular feature in a class doesn’t affect the presence of another one.

Here’s an example: you’d consider fruit to be orange if it is round, orange, and is of around 3.5 inches in diameter. Now, even if these features require each other to exist, they all contribute independently to your assumption that this particular fruit is orange. That’s why this algorithm has ‘Naive’ in its name.

Building the Naive Bayes model is quite simple and helps you work with vast datasets. Moreover, this equation is popular for beating many advanced classification techniques in terms of performance.

Take your AI & Machine Learning skills to the next level with industry-leading programs. Explore these top courses:

Here’s the equation for Naive Bayes:

P (c|x) = P(x|c) P(c) / P(x)

P(c|x) = P(x1 | c) x P(x2 | c) x … P(xn | c) x P(c)

Here, P (c|x) is the posterior probability according to the predictor (x) for the class(c). P(c) is the prior probability of the class, P(x) is the prior probability of the predictor, and P(x|c) is the probability of the predictor for the particular class(c).

Apart from considering the independence of every feature, Naive Bayes also assumes that they contribute equally. This is an important point to remember.

Must Read: Free nlp online course!

How does Naive Bayes Work?

To understand how Naive Bayes works, we should discuss an example.

Suppose we want to find stolen cars and have the following dataset:

Serial No.	Color	Type	Origin	Was it Stolen?
1	Red	Sports	Domestic	Yes
2	Red	Sports	Domestic	No
3	Red	Sports	Domestic	Yes
4	Yellow	Sports	Domestic	No
5	Yellow	Sports	Imported	Yes
6	Yellow	SUV	Imported	No
7	Yellow	SUV	Imported	Yes
8	Yellow	SUV	Domestic	No
9	Red	SUV	Imported	No
10	Red	Sports	Imported	Yes

According to our dataset, we can understand that our algorithm makes the following assumptions:

It assumes that every feature is independent. For example, the colour ‘Yellow’ of a car has nothing to do with its Origin or Type.
It gives every feature the same level of importance. For example, knowing only the Color and Origin would predict the outcome correctly. That’s why every feature is equally important and contributes equally to the result.

Now, with our dataset, we have to classify if thieves steal a car according to its features. Each row has individual entries, and the columns represent the features of every car. In the first row, we have a stolen Red Sports Car with Domestic Origin. We’ll find out if thieves would steal a Red Domestic SUV or not (our dataset doesn’t have an entry for a Red Domestic SUV).

We can rewrite the Bayes Theorem for our example as:

P(y | X) = [P(X | y) P(y)P(X)]/P(X)

Here, y stands for the class variable (Was it Stolen?) to show if the thieves stole the car not according to the conditions. X stands for the features.

X = x1, x2, x3, …., xn)

Here, x1, x2,…, xn stand for the features. We can map them to be Type, Origin, and Color. Now, we’ll replace X and expand the chain rule to get the following:

P(y | x1, …, xn) = [P(x1 | y) P(x2 | y) … P(xn | y) P(y)]/[P(x1) P (x2) … P(xn)]

You can get the values for each by using the dataset and putting their values in the equation. The denominator will remain static for every entry in the dataset to remove it and inject proportionality.

P(y | x1, …, xn) ∝ P(y) i = 1nP(xi | y)

In our example, y only has two outcomes, yes or no.

y = argmaxyP(y) i = 1nP(xi | y)

We can create a Frequency Table to calculate the posterior probability P(y|x) for every feature. Then, we’ll mould the frequency tables to Likelihood Tables and use the Naive Bayesian equation to find every class’s posterior probability. The result of our prediction would be the class that has the highest posterior probability. Here are the Likelihood and Frequency Tables:

Frequency Table of Color:

Color	Was it Stolen (Yes)	Was it Stolen (No)
Red	3	2
Yellow	2	3

Likelihood Table of Color:

Color	Was it Stolen [P(Yes)]	Was it Stolen [P(No)]
Red	3/5	2/5
Yellow	2/5	3/5

Frequency Table of Type:

Type	Was it Stolen (Yes)	Was it Stolen (No)
Sports	4	2
SUV	1	3

Likelihood Table of Type:

Type	Was it Stolen [P(Yes)]	Was it Stolen [P(No)]
Sports	4/5	2/5
SUV	1/5	3/5

Frequency Table of Origin:

Origin	Was it Stolen (Yes)	Was it Stolen (No)
Domestic	2	3
Imported	3	2

Likelihood Table of Origin:

Origin	Was it Stolen [P(Yes)]	Was it Stolen [P(No)]
Domestic	2/5	3/5
Imported	3/5	2/5

Our problem has 3 predictors for X, so according to the equations we saw previously, the posterior probability P(Yes | X) would be as following:

P(Yes | X) = P(Red | Yes) * P(SUV | Yes) * P(Domestic | Yes) * P(Yes)

= ⅗ x ⅕ x ⅖ x 1

= 0.048

P(No | X) would be:

P(No | X) = P(Red | No) * P(SUV | No) * P(Domestic | No) * P(No)

= ⅖ x ⅗ x ⅗ x 1

= 0.144

So, as the posterior probability P(No | X) is higher than the posterior probability P(Yes | X), our Red Domestic SUV will have ‘No’ in the ‘Was it stolen?’ section.

The example should have shown you how the Naive Bayes Classifier works. To get a better picture of Naive Bayes explained, we should now discuss its advantages and disadvantages:

Advantages and Disadvantages of Naive Bayes

Advantages

This algorithm works quickly and can save a lot of time.
Naive Bayes is suitable for solving multi-class prediction problems.
If its assumption of the independence of features holds true, it can perform better than other models and requires much less training data.
Naive Bayes is better suited for categorical input variables than numerical variables.

Disadvantages

Naive Bayes assumes that all predictors (or features) are independent, rarely happening in real life. This limits the applicability of this algorithm in real-world use cases.
This algorithm faces the ‘zero-frequency problem’ where it assigns zero probability to a categorical variable whose category in the test data set wasn’t available in the training dataset. It would be best if you used a smoothing technique to overcome this issue.
Its estimations can be wrong in some cases, so you shouldn’t take its probability outputs very seriously.

Checkout: Machine Learning Models Explained

Applications of Naive Bayes Explained

Here are some areas where this algorithm finds applications:

Text Classification

Most of the time, Naive Bayes finds uses in-text classification due to its assumption of independence and high performance in solving multi-class problems. It enjoys a high rate of success than other algorithms due to its speed and efficiency.

IIIT Bangalore

Executive Diploma in Machine Learning and AI

Placement Assistance

Executive PG Program11 Months

Liverpool John Moores University

Master of Science in Machine Learning & AI

Dual Credentials

Master's Degree19 Months

Sentiment Analysis

One of the most prominent areas of machine learning is sentiment analysis, and this algorithm is quite useful there as well. Sentiment analysis focuses on identifying whether the customers think positively or negatively about a certain topic (product or service).

Recommender Systems

With the help of Collaborative Filtering, Naive Bayes Classifier builds a powerful recommender system to predict if a user would like a particular product (or resource) or not. Amazon, Netflix, and Flipkart are prominent companies that use recommender systems to suggest products to their customers.

Learn More Machine Learning Algorithms

Naive Bayes is a simple and effective machine learning algorithm for solving multi-class problems. It finds uses in many prominent areas of machine learning applications such as sentiment analysis and text classification.

Check out Master of Science in Machine Learning & AI with IIIT Bangalore, the best engineering school in the country to create a program that teaches you not only machine learning but also the effective deployment of it using the cloud infrastructure. Our aim with this program is to open the doors of the most selective institute in the country and give learners access to amazing faculty & resources in order to master a skill that is in high & growing

Expand your expertise with the best resources available. Browse the programs below to find your ideal fit in Best Machine Learning and AI Courses Online.

Best Machine Learning and AI Courses Online

Master of Science in Machine Learning & AI from LJMU	Executive Post Graduate Programme in Machine Learning & AI from IIITB	Executive Post Graduate Program in Data Science & Machine Learning from University of Maryland
Advanced Certificate Programme in Machine Learning & NLP from IIITB	Advanced Certificate Programme in Machine Learning & Deep Learning from IIITB	View all Machine Learning Courses

Discover in-demand Machine Learning skills to expand your expertise. Explore the programs below to find the perfect fit for your goals.

In-demand Machine Learning Skills

Artificial Intelligence Courses	Tableau Courses
NLP Courses	Deep Learning Courses

Discover popular AI and ML blogs and free courses to deepen your expertise. Explore the programs below to find your perfect fit.

Popular AI and ML Blogs & Free Courses

IoT: History, Present & Future	Machine Learning Tutorial: Learn ML	What is Algorithm? Simple & Easy
Robotics Engineer Salary in India : All Roles	A Day in the Life of a Machine Learning Engineer: What do they do?	What is Information Technology?
Permutation vs Combination: Difference between Permutation and Combination	Learning Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning - How to Start	Machine Learning with R: Everything You Need to Know
NLP Free Course	Fundamentals of Deep Learning of Neural Networks	Linear Regression: Step by Step Guide
Artificial Intelligence in the Real World	Introduction to Tableau	Case Study using Python, SQL and Tableau