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FLAT: Fast, Lightweight and Accurate Method for Cardinality Estimation

Summary: FLAT introduces FSPN, an adaptive graphical model combining independent and conditional factorization to capture attribute correlations. It delivers fast near-linear probability computation, compact models, incremental updates, and highly accurate single-table and join cardinalities. (summarized by gpt-5.6-luna on Jul 24 2026)

Paper ID
12525
Venue
VLDB
Year
2021
Pagerank
9.3501502e-05
Overall Rank
1,988 | 86.37%
DOI
10.14778/3461535.3461539

Incoming Non-self Citations Over Time

Authors

BibTeX Citation

@article{zhu_vldb21,
        title = {{FLAT: Fast, Lightweight and Accurate Method for Cardinality Estimation}},
        author = {Zhu, Rong and Wu, Ziniu and Han, Yuxing and Zeng, Kai and Pfadler, Andreas and Qian, Zhengping and Zhou, Jingren and Cui, Bin},
        journal = {PVLDB},
        series = {{VLDB} '21},
        volume = {14},
        number = {9},
        pages = {1489--1502},
        doi = {10.14778/3461535.3461539},
        url = {https://doi.org/10.14778/3461535.3461539},
        year = {2021}
}

Incoming Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)

Showing 50 of 51 citing papers.

Rank Citing Paper Year Venue Pagerank
1,122 Cardinality Estimation in DBMS: A Comprehensive Benchmark Evaluation 2022 VLDB 0.0001209124
2,420 Lero: A Learning-to-Rank Query Optimizer 2023 VLDB 8.605257e-05
2,543 Learned Cardinality Estimation: An In-depth Study 2022 SIGMOD 8.4445934e-05
2,620 Fauce: Fast and Accurate Deep Ensembles with Uncertainty for Cardinality Estimation 2021 VLDB 8.3363963e-05
2,991 FactorJoin: A New Cardinality Estimation Framework for Join Queries 2023 SIGMOD 7.8880723e-05
3,338 Robust Query Driven Cardinality Estimation under Changing Workloads 2023 VLDB 7.5068221e-05
3,688 FACE: A Normalizing Flow based Cardinality Estimator 2022 VLDB 7.201795e-05
4,349 ALECE: An Attention-based Learned Cardinality Estimator for SPJ Queries on Dynamic Workloads 2024 VLDB 6.7504619e-05
4,434 LEON: A New Framework for ML-Aided Query Optimization 2023 VLDB 6.7079088e-05
5,107 Stage: Query Execution Time Prediction in Amazon Redshift 2024 SIGMOD 6.3623786e-05
5,388 Fine-Grained Modeling and Optimization for Intelligent Resource Management in Big Data Processing 2022 VLDB 6.2362811e-05
5,529 Debunking the Myth of Join Ordering: Toward Robust SQL Analytics 2025 SIGMOD 6.18591e-05
5,573 Eraser: Eliminating Performance Regression on Learned Query Optimizer 2024 VLDB 6.1682747e-05
5,576 SafeBound: A Practical System for Generating Cardinality Bounds 2023 SIGMOD 6.1663946e-05
5,639 LpBound: Pessimistic Cardinality Estimation using ℓp-Norms of Degree Sequences 2025 SIGMOD 6.1385102e-05
5,712 Sample-Efficient Cardinality Estimation Using Geometric Deep Learning 2024 VLDB 6.1123894e-05
6,132 Detect, Distill and Update: Learned DB Systems Facing Out of Distribution Data 2023 SIGMOD 5.9660278e-05
6,357 A Unified Transferable Model for ML-Enhanced DBMS 2022 CIDR 5.9020843e-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
6,704 ASM: Harmonizing Autoregressive Model, Sampling, and Multi-dimensional Statistics Merging for Cardinality Estimation 2024 SIGMOD 5.797374e-05
7,076 Refactoring Index Tuning Process with Benefit Estimation 2024 VLDB 5.7098893e-05
7,290 Learning to be a Statistician: Learned Estimator for Number of Distinct Values 2022 VLDB 5.6540503e-05
7,503 Disclosure-Compliant Query Answering 2024 SIGMOD 5.6029996e-05
7,747 Convolution and Cross-Correlation of Count Sketches Enables Fast Cardinality Estimation of Multi-Join Queries 2024 SIGMOD 5.5529458e-05
8,040 PerfGuard: Deploying ML-for-Systems without Performance Regressions, Almost! 2021 VLDB 5.5018396e-05
8,615 A Spark Optimizer for Adaptive, Fine-Grained Parameter Tuning 2024 VLDB 5.4005602e-05
8,849 ByteCard: Enhancing ByteDance’s Data Warehouse with Learned Cardinality Estimation 2024 SIGMOD 5.3577504e-05
8,850 Learning-based Property Estimation with Polynomials 2024 SIGMOD 5.3577504e-05
9,192 Efficient and Effective Cardinality Estimation for Skyline Family 2023 SIGMOD 5.3058708e-05
9,428 LIMAO: A Framework for Lifelong Modular Learned Query Optimization 2025 VLDB 5.2709145e-05
9,587 Machine Unlearning in Learned Databases: An Experimental Analysis 2024 SIGMOD 5.2525104e-05
9,626 Spatial Query Optimization With Learning 2024 VLDB 5.2434488e-05
9,724 Approximate Sketches 2024 SIGMOD 5.2308295e-05
9,793 Selectivity Estimation for Queries Containing Predicates over Set-Valued Attributes 2023 SIGMOD 5.2193018e-05
9,971 Athena: An Effective Learning-based Framework for Query Optimizer Performance Improvement 2025 SIGMOD 5.1845938e-05
9,996 Path-centric Cardinality Estimation for Subgraph Matching 2025 VLDB 5.1814573e-05
10,028 PRICE: A Pretrained Model for Cross-Database Cardinality Estimation 2025 VLDB 5.1745962e-05
10,108 An Elephant Under The Microscope: Analyzing The Interaction Of Optimizer Components In PostgreSQL 2025 SIGMOD 5.1347137e-05
10,316 GenJoin: Conditional Generative Plan-to-Plan Query Optimizer that Learns from Subplan Hints 2026 SIGMOD 5.093636e-05
10,508 Practical Parameterized Query Optimization via Efficient Plan Reuse and List-wise Ranking 2026 SIGMOD 5.093636e-05
10,553 AQD: Online Adaptive Query Dispatcher for HTAP Databases 2026 VLDB 5.093636e-05
10,559 OBELISK: Efficient Offline Query Planning with Bayesian Optimization-Informed Language Model Reasoning 2026 VLDB 5.093636e-05
10,726 LpBound in Action: Cardinality Estimation with One-Sided Guarantees 2025 SIGMOD 5.093636e-05
10,760 FAAQP: Fast and Accurate Approximate Query Processing based on Bitmap-augmented Sum-Product Network 2025 SIGMOD 5.093636e-05
10,851 ACE: A Cardinality Estimator for Set-Valued Queries 2025 VLDB 5.093636e-05
10,891 Cardinality Estimation for Having-Clauses 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
11,083 Graph Transformers for Query Plan Representation: Potentials and Challenges 2025 VLDB 5.093636e-05
11,091 LEAP: A Low-cost Spark SQL Query Optimizer using Pairwise Comparison 2025 VLDB 5.093636e-05
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Outgoing Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)

Showing 27 of 27 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
18 How Good Are Query Optimizers, Really? 2016 VLDB 0.00059284255
24 Spark SQL: Relational Data Processing in Spark 2015 SIGMOD 0.00054865648
43 The Case for Learned Index Structures 2018 SIGMOD 0.00046060254
84 Learned Cardinalities: Estimating Correlated Joins with Deep Learning 2019 CIDR 0.00035838391
86 Automatic Database Management System Tuning Through Large-scale Machine Learning 2017 SIGMOD 0.00035316107
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
154 Neo: A Learned Query Optimizer 2019 VLDB 0.00028726181
280 Selectivity Estimation using Probabilistic Models 2001 SIGMOD 0.00022454217
323 DeepDB: Learn from Data, not from Queries! 2020 VLDB 0.00021264788
365 STHoles: A Multidimensional Workload-Aware Histogram 2001 SIGMOD 0.00020041735
401 Deep Unsupervised Cardinality Estimation 2020 VLDB 0.00019092557
513 NeuroCard: One Cardinality Estimator for All Tables 2021 VLDB 0.00017190574
692 Independence is Good: Dependency-Based Histogram Synopses for High-Dimensional Data 2001 SIGMOD 0.00014919816
694 Cardinality Estimation Done Right: Index-Based Join Sampling 2017 CIDR 0.00014911698
697 Selectivity Estimation for Range Predicates using Lightweight Models 2019 VLDB 0.00014888851
802 Random Sampling over Joins Revisited 2018 SIGMOD 0.00013907725
850 Approximating Multi-Dimensional Aggregate Range Queries Over Real Attributes 2000 SIGMOD 0.00013619394
873 Learning Multi-dimensional Indexes 2020 SIGMOD 0.00013481915
1,061 Are We Ready For Learned Cardinality Estimation? 2021 VLDB 0.00012369764
1,071 Lightweight Graphical Models for Selectivity Estimation Without Independence Assumptions 2011 VLDB 0.00012322342
1,468 Towards a Learning Optimizer for Shared Clouds 2019 VLDB 0.00010686496
1,503 Self-Tuning, GPU-Accelerated Kernel Density Models for Multidimensional Selectivity Estimation 2015 SIGMOD 0.000105564
1,995 Database Learning: Toward a Database that Becomes Smarter Every Time 2017 SIGMOD 9.3403665e-05
2,203 Estimating Join Selectivities using Bandwidth-Optimized Kernel Density Models 2017 VLDB 8.9610447e-05
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# Overall Rank Paper Year Venue
1 3,338 Robust Query Driven Cardinality Estimation under Changing Workloads 2023 VLDB
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4 5,712 Sample-Efficient Cardinality Estimation Using Geometric Deep Learning 2024 VLDB
5 3,688 FACE: A Normalizing Flow based Cardinality Estimator 2022 VLDB
6 1,061 Are We Ready For Learned Cardinality Estimation? 2021 VLDB
7 6,543 Speeding Up End-to-end Query Execution via Learning-based Progressive Cardinality Estimation 2023 SIGMOD
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