PRICE: A Pretrained Model for Cross-Database Cardinality Estimation

Summary: PRICE: a pretrained multi-table cardinality estimator that uses self-attention over low-level, distributional and query features to learn transferable meta-knowledge for cross-database CardEst while needing only histogram-like preparation cost. Pretrained on 30 datasets (≈5h, ~40MB) and finetunable, PRICE outperforms prior ML estimators, yields faster/lower-overhead plans, and is robust to updates, scaling, and workload shifts. (summarized by gpt-5-mini on Feb 09 2026)

Paper ID: 14225
Venue: VLDB
Year: 2025
Pagerank: 4.2615675e-05
Overall Rank: 9,877 | 31.36%
DOI: 10.14778/3712221.3712231

Incoming Non-self Citations Over Time

Authors

Incoming Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)

Showing 1 of 1 citing papers.

Rank	Citing Paper	Year	Venue	Pagerank
9,845	Path-centric Cardinality Estimation for Subgraph Matching	2025	VLDB	4.2680295e-05

Outgoing Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)

Showing 39 of 39 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	0.0040465394
71	How Good Are Query Optimizers, Really?	2016	VLDB	0.00059446482
141	Selectivity Estimation Without the Attribute Value Independence Assumption	1997	VLDB	0.00041819767
181	LEO - DB2's LEarning Optimizer	2001	VLDB	0.00036970794
203	Learned Cardinalities: Estimating Correlated Joins with Deep Learning	2019	CIDR	0.00034868567
373	Selectivity Estimation using Probabilistic Models	2001	SIGMOD	0.00025354685
512	STHoles: A Multidimensional Workload-Aware Histogram	2001	SIGMOD	0.00021385343
606	DeepDB: Learn from Data, not from Queries!	2020	VLDB	0.00019251186
627	Preventing Bad Plans by Bounding the Impact of Cardinality Estimation Errors	2009	VLDB	0.00018959896
752	Deep Unsupervised Cardinality Estimation	2020	VLDB	0.00017138049
838	Independence is Good: Dependency-Based Histogram Synopses for High-Dimensional Data	2001	SIGMOD	0.00016024923
905	NeuroCard: One Cardinality Estimator for All Tables	2021	VLDB	0.00015423174
941	Wander Join: Online Aggregation via Random Walks	2016	SIGMOD	0.00015147831
995	Approximating Multi-Dimensional Aggregate Range Queries Over Real Attributes	2000	SIGMOD	0.00014745185
1,104	Cardinality Estimation Done Right: Index-Based Join Sampling	2017	CIDR	0.0001398479
1,239	Selectivity Estimation for Range Predicates using Lightweight Models	2019	VLDB	0.00013091459
1,372	Random Sampling over Joins Revisited	2018	SIGMOD	0.0001233325
1,536	Lightweight Graphical Models for Selectivity Estimation Without Independence Assumptions	2011	VLDB	0.00011458359
1,638	Cardinality Estimation in DBMS: A Comprehensive Benchmark Evaluation	2022	VLDB	0.00011050093
1,699	Are We Ready For Learned Cardinality Estimation?	2021	VLDB	0.00010848882
2,080	Towards a Learning Optimizer for Shared Clouds	2019	VLDB	9.5954034e-05
2,167	Self-Tuning, GPU-Accelerated Kernel Density Models for Multidimensional Selectivity Estimation	2015	SIGMOD	9.3879598e-05
2,769	FLAT: Fast, Lightweight and Accurate Method for Cardinality Estimation	2021	VLDB	8.1512848e-05
2,971	Estimating Join Selectivities using Bandwidth-Optimized Kernel Density Models	2017	VLDB	7.7935535e-05
3,269	Learned Cardinality Estimation: An In-depth Study	2022	SIGMOD	7.3026051e-05
3,455	Learned Cardinality Estimation: A Design Space Exploration and A Comparative Evaluation	2022	VLDB	7.0760196e-05
3,492	Fauce: Fast and Accurate Deep Ensembles with Uncertainty for Cardinality Estimation	2021	VLDB	7.0435484e-05
3,819	Zero-Shot Cost Models for Out-of-the-box Learned Cost Prediction	2022	VLDB	6.7267885e-05
3,924	A Unified Deep Model of Learning from both Data and Queries for Cardinality Estimation	2021	SIGMOD	6.6227223e-05
3,955	Efficiently Approximating Selectivity Functions using Low Overhead Regression Models	2020	VLDB	6.5895015e-05
3,992	FactorJoin: A New Cardinality Estimation Framework for Join Queries	2023	SIGMOD	6.5519369e-05
4,413	Robust Query Driven Cardinality Estimation under Changing Workloads	2023	VLDB	6.1989918e-05
4,431	Lightweight and Accurate Cardinality Estimation by Neural Network Gaussian Process	2022	SIGMOD	6.1870601e-05
5,250	One Model to Rule them All: Towards Zero-Shot Learning for Databases	2022	CIDR	5.6007779e-05
5,405	ALECE: An Attention-based Learned Cardinality Estimator for SPJ Queries on Dynamic Workloads	2024	VLDB	5.5243727e-05
5,941	Eraser: Eliminating Performance Regression on Learned Query Optimizer	2024	VLDB	5.2594013e-05
6,365	Pre-training Summarization Models of Structured Datasets for Cardinality Estimation	2022	VLDB	5.0892829e-05
6,774	A Unified Transferable Model for ML-Enhanced DBMS	2022	CIDR	4.9253635e-05
6,883	PilotScope: Steering Databases with Machine Learning Drivers	2024	VLDB	4.8918682e-05

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11,192	Efficient and Effective Cardinality Estimation for Skyline Family	2023	SIGMOD	4.1905499e-05
9,394	CEDA: Learned Cardinality Estimation with Domain Adaptation	2023	VLDB	4.3401448e-05
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