How to Optimize SQL Queries? A Comparison Between Split, Holistic, and Hybrid Approaches

Summary: Contrasts split vs holistic query optimization across full QEP decisions (join orders, access methods, physical operator implementations), highlighting stark optimization-time vs plan-quality tradeoffs. Proposes a top-k hybrid that recovers holistic optima with optimization time near split, validated experimentally in the mutable research DB. (summarized by gpt-5-mini on Feb 09 2026)

Paper ID: 14199
Venue: VLDB
Year: 2025
Pagerank: 5.1435736e-05
Overall Rank: 10,106 | 30.67%
DOI: 10.14778/3749646.3749663

Incoming Non-self Citations Over Time

Authors

1. Luca Gretscher (Saarland University)
2. Jens Dittrich (Saarland University)

BibTeX Citation

@article{gretscher_vldb25,
        title = {{How to Optimize SQL Queries? A Comparison Between Split, Holistic, and Hybrid Approaches}},
        author = {Gretscher, Luca and Dittrich, Jens},
        journal = {PVLDB},
        series = {{VLDB} '25},
        volume = {18},
        number = {11},
        pages = {3910--3922},
        doi = {10.14778/3749646.3749663},
        url = {https://doi.org/10.14778/3749646.3749663},
        year = {2025}
}

Incoming Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)

Showing 1 of 1 citing papers.

Rank	Citing Paper	Year	Venue	Pagerank
10,559	OBELISK: Efficient Offline Query Planning with Bayesian Optimization-Informed Language Model Reasoning	2026	VLDB	5.093636e-05

Outgoing Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)

Showing 17 of 17 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
23	Efficiently Compiling Efficient Query Plans for Modern Hardware	2011	VLDB	0.00054886415
154	Neo: A Learned Query Optimizer	2019	VLDB	0.00028726181
316	Measuring the Complexity of Join Enumeration in Query Optimization	1990	VLDB	0.0002141607
411	Worst-case Optimal Join Algorithms	2012	PODS	0.00018902089
744	Fundamental Techniques for Order Optimization	1996	SIGMOD	0.00014411295
774	Rapid Bushy Join-order Optimization with Cartesian Products	1996	SIGMOD	0.00014123979
1,298	Analysis of Two Existing and One New Dynamic Programming Algorithm for the Generation of Optimal Bushy Join Trees without Cross Products	2006	VLDB	0.00011259156
1,727	Optimal Top-Down Join Enumeration	2007	SIGMOD	9.91063e-05
1,876	Flow-Loss: Learning Cardinality Estimates That Matter	2021	VLDB	9.5717543e-05
3,538	A Combined Framework for Grouping and Order Optimization	2004	VLDB	7.3287689e-05
4,223	Accelerating Queries with Group-By and Join by Groupjoin	2011	VLDB	6.8224393e-05
4,347	Avoiding Sorting and Grouping In Processing Queries	2003	VLDB	6.7509984e-05
7,882	Efficiently Computing Join Orders with Heuristic Search	2023	SIGMOD	5.5237338e-05
9,612	Memory Efficient Scheduling of Query Pipeline Execution	2022	CIDR	5.2449175e-05
11,354	mutable: A Modern DBMS for Research and Fast Prototyping	2023	CIDR	5.093636e-05

Semantically Similar Papers

#	Overall Rank	Paper	Year	Venue
1	3,003	Configuration-Parametric Query Optimization for Physical Design Tuning	2008	SIGMOD
2	434	Query Optimization for Parallel Execution	1992	SIGMOD
3	2,465	Optimization of Queries with User-defined Predicates	1996	VLDB
4	6,009	Optimization of Conjunctive Predicates for Main Memory Column Stores	2016	VLDB
5	984	Analyzing Plan Diagrams of Database Query Optimizers	2005	VLDB
6	1,740	Adopting Worst-Case Optimal Joins in Relational Database Systems	2020	VLDB
7	2,104	Optimization of Multi-Way Join Queries for Parallel Execution	1991	VLDB
8	143	Optimization of Nonrecursive Queries	1986	VLDB
9	9,756	Efficient Query Re-optimization with Judicious Subquery Selections	2023	SIGMOD
10	290	An Overview of Query Optimization in Relational Systems	1998	PODS