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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
5,091 Budget-aware Index Tuning with Reinforcement Learning 2022 SIGMOD 6.3669569e-05
5,105 SAM: Database Generation from Query Workloads with Supervised Autoregressive Models 2022 SIGMOD 6.3628539e-05
5,132 Facilitating SQL Query Composition and Analysis 2020 SIGMOD 6.3534526e-05
5,137 Exact Cardinality Query Optimization with Bounded Execution Cost 2019 SIGMOD 6.3507372e-05
5,148 LSched: A Workload-Aware Learned Query Scheduler for Analytical Database Systems 2022 SIGMOD 6.3465986e-05
5,171 An Efficient Transfer Learning Based Configuration Adviser for Database Tuning 2024 VLDB 6.3347618e-05
5,277 FASTgres: Making Learned Query Optimizer Hinting Effective 2023 VLDB 6.2859099e-05
5,354 Can Large Language Models Predict Data Correlations from Column Names? 2023 VLDB 6.2515841e-05
5,399 Efficient Massively Parallel Join Optimization for Large Queries* 2022 SIGMOD 6.2319315e-05
5,461 HyperBench: A Benchmark and Tool for Hypergraphs and Empirical Findings 2019 PODS 6.2090515e-05
5,529 Debunking the Myth of Join Ordering: Toward Robust SQL Analytics 2025 SIGMOD 6.18591e-05
5,551 PGMJoins: Random Join Sampling with Graphical Models 2021 SIGMOD 6.1782856e-05
5,558 HMAB: Self-Driving Hierarchy of Bandits for Integrated Physical Database Design Tuning 2023 VLDB 6.1749098e-05
5,573 Eraser: Eliminating Performance Regression on Learned Query Optimizer 2024 VLDB 6.1682747e-05
5,639 LpBound: Pessimistic Cardinality Estimation using ℓp-Norms of Degree Sequences 2025 SIGMOD 6.1385102e-05
5,677 Making SQL Queries Correct on Incomplete Databases: A Feasibility Study 2016 PODS 6.1248899e-05
5,701 Lemo: A Cache-Enhanced Learned Optimizer for Concurrent Queries 2023 SIGMOD 6.1167049e-05
5,712 Sample-Efficient Cardinality Estimation Using Geometric Deep Learning 2024 VLDB 6.1123894e-05
5,744 SQLStorm: Taking Database Benchmarking into the LLM Era 2025 VLDB 6.1019672e-05
5,767 A Comparative Study and Component Analysis of Query Plan Representation Techniques in ML4DB Studies 2024 VLDB 6.0945741e-05
5,781 Free Join: Unifying Worst-Case Optimal and Traditional Joins 2023 SIGMOD 6.0910397e-05
5,792 Pre-training Summarization Models of Structured Datasets for Cardinality Estimation 2022 VLDB 6.0871213e-05
5,947 Revisiting Reuse in Main Memory Database Systems 2017 SIGMOD 6.0323707e-05
6,009 Optimization of Conjunctive Predicates for Main Memory Column Stores 2016 VLDB 6.0113733e-05
6,019 Robustness Metrics for Relational Query Execution Plans 2018 VLDB 6.0060149e-05
6,024 Expand your Training Limits! Generating Training Data for ML-based Data Management 2021 SIGMOD 6.0031118e-05
6,042 Pando: Enhanced Data Skipping with Logical Data Partitioning 2023 VLDB 5.9970052e-05
6,088 How Good are Learned Cost Models, Really? Insights from Query Optimization Tasks 2025 SIGMOD 5.9813965e-05
6,253 Declarative Sub-Operators for Universal Data Processing 2023 VLDB 5.940599e-05
6,257 Join Size Bounds using l_p-Norms on Degree Sequences 2024 PODS 5.9397944e-05
6,271 Is Your Learned Query Optimizer Behaving As You Expect? A Machine Learning Perspective 2024 VLDB 5.9326197e-05
6,323 Modeling Shifting Workloads for Learned Database Systems 2024 SIGMOD 5.9141228e-05
6,327 Breaking It Down: An In-depth Study of Index Advisors 2024 VLDB 5.9124005e-05
6,357 A Unified Transferable Model for ML-Enhanced DBMS 2022 CIDR 5.9020843e-05
6,434 Yannakakis+: Practical Acyclic Query Evaluation with Theoretical Guarantees 2025 SIGMOD 5.8799421e-05
6,462 PilotScope: Steering Databases with Machine Learning Drivers 2024 VLDB 5.8717744e-05
6,543 Speeding Up End-to-end Query Execution via Learning-based Progressive Cardinality Estimation 2023 SIGMOD 5.8461929e-05
6,593 Simple Adaptive Query Processing vs. Learned Query Optimizers: Observations and Analysis 2023 VLDB 5.8297039e-05
6,600 A Unified and Efficient Coordinating Framework for Autonomous DBMS Tuning 2023 SIGMOD 5.8250114e-05
6,684 CrocodileDB: Efficient Database Execution through Intelligent Deferment 2020 CIDR 5.8036476e-05
6,704 ASM: Harmonizing Autoregressive Model, Sampling, and Multi-dimensional Statistics Merging for Cardinality Estimation 2024 SIGMOD 5.797374e-05
6,735 Join Order Selection with Deep Reinforcement Learning: Fundamentals, Techniques, and Challenges 2023 VLDB 5.7878855e-05
6,760 LPLM: A Neural Language Model for Cardinality Estimation of LIKE-Queries 2024 SIGMOD 5.7826781e-05
6,997 E2ETune: End-to-End Knob Tuning via Fine-tuned Generative Language Model 2025 VLDB 5.7300324e-05
7,069 SKT: A One-Pass Multi-Sketch Data Analytics Accelerator 2021 VLDB 5.7117595e-05
7,076 Refactoring Index Tuning Process with Benefit Estimation 2024 VLDB 5.7098893e-05
7,112 Coresets over Multiple Tables for Feature-rich and Data-efficient Machine Learning 2023 VLDB 5.6990782e-05
7,193 dbET: Execution Time Distribution-based Plan Selection 2023 SIGMOD 5.6770249e-05
7,200 Intermittent Query Processing 2019 VLDB 5.6756294e-05
7,213 Scalable Multi-Query Execution using Reinforcement Learning 2021 SIGMOD 5.670422e-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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# Overall Rank Paper Year Venue
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