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How Good Are Query Optimizers, Really?

Summary: Introduces the Join Order Benchmark (JOB) to test optimizer components on real-world, multi-join workloads. Cardinality estimators are error-prone; cost models matter less than estimates; exhaustive dynamic programming improves plan quality over heuristics under poor cardinality. (summarized by gpt-5-nano on Feb 09 2026)

Paper ID
11501
Venue
VLDB
Year
2016
Pagerank
0.00059284255
Overall Rank
18 | 99.88%
DOI
10.14778/2850583.2850594

Incoming Non-self Citations Over Time

Authors

BibTeX Citation

@article{leis_vldb16,
        title = {{How Good Are Query Optimizers, Really?}},
        author = {Leis, Viktor and Gubichev, Andrey and Mirchev, Atanas and Boncz, Peter and Kemper, Alfons and Neumann, Thomas},
        journal = {PVLDB},
        series = {{VLDB} '16},
        volume = {9},
        number = {3},
        pages = {204--215},
        doi = {10.14778/2850583.2850594},
        url = {https://doi.org/10.14778/2850583.2850594},
        year = {2016}
}

Incoming Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)

Showing 50 of 313 citing papers.

Rank Citing Paper Year Venue Pagerank
2,962 To Partition, or Not to Partition, That is the Join Question in a Real System 2021 SIGMOD 7.9170451e-05
2,991 FactorJoin: A New Cardinality Estimation Framework for Join Queries 2023 SIGMOD 7.8880723e-05
3,051 Towards a Hands-Free Query Optimizer through Deep Learning 2019 CIDR 7.8121919e-05
3,070 Accurate Summary-based Cardinality Estimation Through the Lens of Cardinality Estimation Graphs 2022 VLDB 7.7900444e-05
3,086 A Unified Deep Model of Learning from both Data and Queries for Cardinality Estimation 2021 SIGMOD 7.7708642e-05
3,137 Pushing Data-Induced Predicates Through Joins in Big-Data Clusters 2020 VLDB 7.7204167e-05
3,213 Estimating Cardinalities with Deep Sketches 2019 SIGMOD 7.6328677e-05
3,215 Every Row Counts: Combining Sketches and Sampling for Accurate Group-By Result Estimates 2019 CIDR 7.6324234e-05
3,283 A Learned Sketch for Subgraph Counting 2021 SIGMOD 7.56675e-05
3,338 Robust Query Driven Cardinality Estimation under Changing Workloads 2023 VLDB 7.5068221e-05
3,351 RHEEM: Enabling Cross-Platform Data Processing - May The Big Data Be With You! - 2018 VLDB 7.4937347e-05
3,357 Columnar Storage and List-based Processing for Graph Database Management Systems 2021 VLDB 7.4904874e-05
3,441 A Statistical Perspective on Discovering Functional Dependencies in Noisy Data 2020 SIGMOD 7.4138323e-05
3,510 Performance-Optimal Filtering: Bloom Overtakes Cuckoo at High Throughput 2019 VLDB 7.3561488e-05
3,516 LOGER: A Learned Optimizer towards Generating Efficient and Robust Query Execution Plans 2023 VLDB 7.3524442e-05
3,545 Astrid: Accurate Selectivity Estimation for String Predicates using Deep Learning 2021 VLDB 7.3249967e-05
3,571 Looking Ahead Makes Query Plans Robust: Making the Initial Case with In-Memory Star Schema Data Warehouse Workloads 2017 VLDB 7.2991953e-05
3,605 Computation Reuse in Analytics Job Service at Microsoft 2018 SIGMOD 7.2640711e-05
3,688 FACE: A Normalizing Flow based Cardinality Estimator 2022 VLDB 7.201795e-05
3,762 HTAP Databases: What is New and What is Next 2022 SIGMOD 7.1449267e-05
3,809 Auto-WLM: Machine Learning Enhanced Workload Management in Amazon Redshift 2023 SIGMOD 7.1074195e-05
3,926 UDO: Universal Database Optimization using Reinforcement Learning 2021 VLDB 7.0128068e-05
3,941 Guaranteeing the O~(AGM/OUT) Runtime for Uniform Sampling and Size Estimation over Joins 2023 PODS 7.0074268e-05
3,959 Simplicity Done Right for Join Ordering 2021 CIDR 6.9879431e-05
3,961 MB2: Decomposed Behavior Modeling for Self-Driving Database Management Systems 2021 SIGMOD 6.987575e-05
3,998 Deploying a Steered Query Optimizer in Production at Microsoft 2022 SIGMOD 6.9676473e-05
4,011 Towards Dynamic and Safe Configuration Tuning for Cloud Databases 2022 SIGMOD 6.959982e-05
4,069 JSON Tiles: Fast Analytics on Semi-Structured Data 2021 SIGMOD 6.9276175e-05
4,101 Automated Generation of Materialized Views in Oracle 2020 VLDB 6.9009734e-05
4,205 Sample Debiasing in the Themis Open World Database System 2020 SIGMOD 6.8337021e-05
4,277 Adaptive Statistics in Oracle 12c 2017 VLDB 6.7873816e-05
4,363 GenRewrite: Query Rewriting via Large Language Models 2026 SIGMOD 6.7423909e-05
4,368 Lightweight and Accurate Cardinality Estimation by Neural Network Gaussian Process 2022 SIGMOD 6.7393882e-05
4,376 Adaptive Work Placement for Query Processing on Heterogeneous Computing Resources 2017 VLDB 6.7364442e-05
4,434 LEON: A New Framework for ML-Aided Query Optimization 2023 VLDB 6.7079088e-05
4,470 Kepler: Robust Learning for Faster Parametric Query Optimization 2023 SIGMOD 6.6817353e-05
4,553 Predicate Transfer: Efficient Pre-Filtering on Multi-Join Queries 2024 CIDR 6.6346951e-05
4,603 The Art of Balance: A RateupDB Experience of Building a CPU/GPU Hybrid Database Product 2021 VLDB 6.6105578e-05
4,612 Warper: Efficiently Adapting Learned Cardinality Estimators to Data and Workload Drifts 2022 SIGMOD 6.6072026e-05
4,637 Columnstore and B+ tree – Are Hybrid Physical Designs Important? 2018 SIGMOD 6.592197e-05
4,643 Learned Index Benefits: Machine Learning Based Index Performance Estimation 2022 VLDB 6.5907466e-05
4,671 PreQR: Pre-training Representation for SQL Understanding 2022 SIGMOD 6.5732787e-05
4,782 Cuckoo Index: A Lightweight Secondary Index Structure 2020 VLDB 6.5115802e-05
4,900 COMPASS: Online Sketch-based Query Optimization for In-Memory Databases 2021 SIGMOD 6.4534715e-05
4,929 AutoSteer: Learned Query Optimization for Any SQL Database 2023 VLDB 6.4423294e-05
4,945 Lightweight Cardinality Estimation in LSM-based Systems 2018 SIGMOD 6.4321265e-05
5,000 Permutable Compiled Queries: Dynamically Adapting Compiled Queries without Recompiling 2021 VLDB 6.4069917e-05
5,010 Analyzing the Impact of Cardinality Estimation on Execution Plans in Microsoft SQL Server 2023 VLDB 6.4023732e-05
5,059 Steering Query Optimizers: A Practical Take on Big Data Workloads 2021 SIGMOD 6.3807509e-05
5,073 Database Workload Characterization with Query Plan Encoders 2022 VLDB 6.3751266e-05
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Outgoing Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)

Showing 23 of 23 cited papers.

Citations counted here include only citations to other VLDB/SIGMOD/CIDR/PODS papers in this database.

Rank Cited Paper Year Venue Pagerank
1 Access Path Selection in a Relational Database Management System 1979 SIGMOD 0.0024089429
89 On the Propagation of Errors in the Size of Join Results 1991 SIGMOD 0.00035031529
100 LEO - DB2's LEarning Optimizer 2001 VLDB 0.00034385207
101 Selectivity Estimation Without the Attribute Value Independence Assumption 1997 VLDB 0.00034376651
159 CORDS: Automatic Discovery of Correlations and Soft Functional Dependencies 2004 SIGMOD 0.00028129426
257 The History of Histograms (abridged) 2003 VLDB 0.00023154793
388 Preventing Bad Plans by Bounding the Impact of Cardinality Estimation Errors 2009 VLDB 0.00019410042
396 R* Optimizer Validation and Performance Evaluation for Local Queries 1986 SIGMOD 0.00019287574
566 Towards a Robust Query Optimizer: A Principled and Practical Approach 2005 SIGMOD 0.00016436005
1,013 Dynamic Programming Strikes Back 2008 SIGMOD 0.00012652549
1,071 Lightweight Graphical Models for Selectivity Estimation Without Independence Assumptions 2011 VLDB 0.00012322342
1,604 The Picasso Database Query Optimizer Visualizer 2010 VLDB 0.00010230973
1,893 CS2: A New Database Synopsis for Query Estimation 2013 SIGMOD 9.5269935e-05
1,936 Consistently Estimating the Selectivity of Conjuncts of Predicates 2005 VLDB 9.4557372e-05
1,987 Plan Bouquets: Query Processing without Selectivity Estimation 2014 SIGMOD 9.3517129e-05
2,250 Cache-Efficient Aggregation: Hashing Is Sorting 2015 SIGMOD 8.8694486e-05
2,275 Counter Strike: Generic Top-Down Join Enumeration for Hypergraphs 2013 VLDB 8.8196821e-05
2,664 Adaptive and Big Data Scale Parallel Execution in Oracle 2013 VLDB 8.2816537e-05
2,944 Query Optimizers: Time to Rethink the Contract? 2009 SIGMOD 7.9335187e-05
3,426 Exact Cardinality Query Optimization for Optimizer Testing 2009 VLDB 7.4218997e-05
3,813 Query Simplification: Graceful Degradation for Join-Order Optimization 2009 SIGMOD 7.1051056e-05
4,091 Of Snowstorms and Bushy Trees 2014 VLDB 6.9090244e-05
6,688 ROX: Run-time Optimization of XQueries 2009 SIGMOD 5.8015211e-05
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