The term “RTL” refers to the functionality of a device that is written in a language like Verilog or VHDL. It represents the behavior of the device at a higher level of abstraction. On the other hand, a netlist is a gate-level description of the device that is obtained after synthesizing the RTL. So, in summary, RTL is the higher-level representation of the device’s functionality, while the netlist is the gate-level description.