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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
10,401 SEFRQO: A Self-Evolving Fine-Tuned RAG-Based Query Optimizer 2026 SIGMOD 5.093636e-05
10,413 Understanding and Detecting Query Performance Regression in Practical Index Tuning: [Experiments & Analysis] 2026 SIGMOD 5.093636e-05
10,445 Divo: Learning a Stable and Effective Query Optimizer with a Diverse Workload 2026 SIGMOD 5.093636e-05
10,466 InferF: Declarative Factorization of AI/ML Inferences over Joins 2026 SIGMOD 5.093636e-05
10,492 Reqo: A Comprehensive Learning-Based Cost Model for Robust and Explainable Query Optimization 2026 SIGMOD 5.093636e-05
10,501 SQLBarber: A System Leveraging Large Language Models to Generate Customized and Realistic SQL Workloads 2026 SIGMOD 5.093636e-05
10,506 This is Going to Sound Crazy, But What If We Used Large Language Models to Boost Automatic Database Tuning Algorithms By Leveraging Prior History? We Will Find Better Configurations More Quickly Than Retraining From Scratch! 2026 SIGMOD 5.093636e-05
10,508 Practical Parameterized Query Optimization via Efficient Plan Reuse and List-wise Ranking 2026 SIGMOD 5.093636e-05
10,513 LIO: A lightweight and interpretable query optimizer based on an evolutionary forest 2026 VLDB 5.093636e-05
10,515 Sample-based Distinct Cardinality Estimation for Multiple Attributes in Multi-Dataset Queries 2026 VLDB 5.093636e-05
10,529 Robust Predicate Transfer with Dynamic Execution 2026 VLDB 5.093636e-05
10,559 OBELISK: Efficient Offline Query Planning with Bayesian Optimization-Informed Language Model Reasoning 2026 VLDB 5.093636e-05
10,565 LakeHelm: Zero-Shot Lakehouse Advisor for Joint Engine-Format Selection and Configuration 2026 VLDB 5.093636e-05
10,569 Toward Drift-Aware Database Benchmarking 2026 VLDB 5.093636e-05
10,582 FlowLog: Efficient and Extensible Datalog via Incrementality 2026 VLDB 5.093636e-05
10,586 TATA: An Efficient Framework for Task Transfer in Query Plan Representation 2026 VLDB 5.093636e-05
10,662 Data Chunk Compaction in Vectorized Execution 2025 SIGMOD 5.093636e-05
10,716 Demo of LearnedWMP: Workload Memory Prediction Using Deep Query Template Representations 2025 SIGMOD 5.093636e-05
10,726 LpBound in Action: Cardinality Estimation with One-Sided Guarantees 2025 SIGMOD 5.093636e-05
10,740 UDFBench: A Tool for Benchmarking UDF Queries on SQL Engines 2025 SIGMOD 5.093636e-05
10,742 Virtualizing Cloud Data Infrastructures with BRAD 2025 SIGMOD 5.093636e-05
10,749 AJOSC: Adaptive Join Order Selection for Continuous Queries 2025 SIGMOD 5.093636e-05
10,800 Two Birds with One Stone: Efficient Deep Learning over Mislabeled Data through Subset Selection 2025 SIGMOD 5.093636e-05
10,831 Holistic query Approximation via RL Modeling 2025 VLDB 5.093636e-05
10,834 QOVIS: Understanding and Diagnosing Query Optimizer via a Visualization-assisted Approach 2025 VLDB 5.093636e-05
10,851 ACE: A Cardinality Estimator for Set-Valued Queries 2025 VLDB 5.093636e-05
10,852 Accio: Bolt-on Query Federation 2025 VLDB 5.093636e-05
10,873 Unraveling the Impact of Window Semantics: Optimizing Join Order for Efficient Stream Processing 2025 VLDB 5.093636e-05
10,875 Data-Agnostic Cardinality Learning from Imperfect Workloads 2025 VLDB 5.093636e-05
10,881 Robust Plan Evaluation based on Approximate Probabilistic Machine Learning 2025 VLDB 5.093636e-05
10,884 Conformal Prediction for Verifiable Learned Query Optimization 2025 VLDB 5.093636e-05
10,886 AQETuner: Reliable Query-level Configuration Tuning for Analytical Query Engines 2025 VLDB 5.093636e-05
10,888 Saving Private Hash Join 2025 VLDB 5.093636e-05
10,945 The Accuracy of Cardinality Estimators: Unraveling the Evaluation Result Conundrum 2025 VLDB 5.093636e-05
10,967 Privacy-Enhanced Database Synthesis for Benchmark Publishing 2025 VLDB 5.093636e-05
10,969 Improving DBMS Scheduling Decisions with Accurate Performance Prediction on Concurrent Queries 2025 VLDB 5.093636e-05
10,986 PAR2QO: Parametric Penalty-Aware Robust Query Optimization 2025 VLDB 5.093636e-05
10,989 Selective Late Materialization in Modern Analytical Databases 2025 VLDB 5.093636e-05
11,003 Automatic Indexing in Oracle 2025 VLDB 5.093636e-05
11,019 SQL:Trek Automated Index Design at Airbnb 2025 VLDB 5.093636e-05
11,035 Hint-QPT: Hints for Robust Query Performance Tuning 2025 VLDB 5.093636e-05
11,058 A Demonstration of Q^2O: Quantum-augmented Query Optimizer 2025 VLDB 5.093636e-05
11,059 Cardinality Estimation for Similarity Search on High-Dimensional Data Objects: The Impact of Reference Objects 2025 VLDB 5.093636e-05
11,065 Learned Cost Models for Query Optimization: From Batch to Streaming Systems 2025 VLDB 5.093636e-05
11,076 CloudGlide: Deconstructing the Landscape of Cloud-Based Analytics 2025 VLDB 5.093636e-05
11,083 Graph Transformers for Query Plan Representation: Potentials and Challenges 2025 VLDB 5.093636e-05
11,084 Exploring Exploratory Querying 2025 VLDB 5.093636e-05
11,091 LEAP: A Low-cost Spark SQL Query Optimizer using Pairwise Comparison 2025 VLDB 5.093636e-05
11,095 LASER: Buffer-Aware Learned Query Scheduling in Master-Standby Databases 2025 VLDB 5.093636e-05
11,103 RankPQO: Learning-to-Rank for Parametric Query Optimization 2025 VLDB 5.093636e-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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