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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
h476371500a44338b
Venue
VLDB
Year
2016
Pagerank
0.00061066921
Overall Rank
15 | 99.91%
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 330 citing papers.

Rank Citing Paper Year Venue Pagerank
7,072 Plan Stitch: Harnessing the Best of Many Plans 2018 VLDB 5.6074688e-05
7,201 Coresets over Multiple Tables for Feature-rich and Data-efficient Machine Learning 2023 VLDB 5.5871656e-05
7,216 SKT: A One-Pass Multi-Sketch Data Analytics Accelerator 2021 VLDB 5.5837401e-05
7,217 Refactoring Index Tuning Process with Benefit Estimation 2024 VLDB 5.5834823e-05
7,236 RCRank: Multimodal Ranking of Root Causes of Slow Queries in Cloud Database Systems 2025 VLDB 5.5790509e-05
7,341 Scalable Multi-Query Execution using Reinforcement Learning 2021 SIGMOD 5.5481233e-05
7,367 ADOPT: Adaptively Optimizing Attribute Orders for Worst-Case Optimal Join Algorithms via Reinforcement Learning 2023 VLDB 5.5411636e-05
7,410 POLAR: Adaptive and Non-invasive Join Order Selection via Plans of Least Resistance 2024 VLDB 5.5342768e-05
7,471 Fast Detection of Denial Constraint Violations 2022 VLDB 5.5176505e-05
7,566 Convolution and Cross-Correlation of Count Sketches Enables Fast Cardinality Estimation of Multi-Join Queries 2024 SIGMOD 5.4952834e-05
7,597 On the Calculation of Optimality Ranges for Relational Query Execution Plans 2018 SIGMOD 5.4872821e-05
7,764 DBG-PT: A Large Language Model Assisted Query Performance Regression Debugger 2024 VLDB 5.4564979e-05
7,817 Parachute: Single-Pass Bi-Directional Information Passing 2025 VLDB 5.4477841e-05
7,822 Bespoke OLAP: Synthesizing Workload-Specific One-size-fits-one Database Engines 2026 VLDB 5.4461624e-05
7,864 Blueprinting the Cloud: Unifying and Automatically Optimizing Cloud Data Infrastructures with BRAD 2024 VLDB 5.4367919e-05
7,866 Building Advanced SQL Analytics From Low-Level Plan Operators 2021 SIGMOD 5.4365876e-05
7,907 A Practical Approach to Groupjoin and Nested Aggregates 2021 VLDB 5.4287568e-05
7,917 Avoiding Materialisation for Guarded Aggregate Queries 2025 VLDB 5.4276002e-05
7,923 NOCAP: Near-Optimal Correlation-Aware Partitioning Joins 2023 SIGMOD 5.4260253e-05
7,962 Excalibur: A Virtual Machine for Adaptive Fine-grained JIT-Compiled Query Execution based on VOILA 2023 VLDB 5.4167003e-05
7,968 Leveraging Dynamic and Heterogeneous Workload Knowledge to Boost the Performance of Index Advisors 2024 VLDB 5.4156041e-05
7,977 The Holon Approach for Simultaneously Tuning Multiple Components in a Self-Driving Database Management System with Machine Learning via Synthesized Proto-Actions 2024 VLDB 5.4142519e-05
8,035 JoinSketch: A Sketch Algorithm for Accurate and Unbiased Inner-Product Estimation 2023 SIGMOD 5.4025473e-05
8,039 Efficiently Computing Join Orders with Heuristic Search 2023 SIGMOD 5.4017809e-05
8,131 Thrifty Query Execution via Incrementability 2020 SIGMOD 5.3936608e-05
8,159 A Concave Path to Low-overhead Robust Query Processing 2018 VLDB 5.3873068e-05
8,164 Efficient Query Re-optimization with Judicious Subquery Selections 2023 SIGMOD 5.3852872e-05
8,202 Grep: A Graph Learning Based Database Partitioning System 2023 SIGMOD 5.378708e-05
8,258 The Case for NLP-Enhanced Database Tuning: Towards Tuning Tools that “Read the Manual” 2021 VLDB 5.3671363e-05
8,332 Learned Offline Query Planning via Bayesian Optimization 2025 SIGMOD 5.3528188e-05
8,345 MONSOON: Multi-Step Optimization and Execution of Queries with Partially Obscured Predicates 2020 SIGMOD 5.3511996e-05
8,347 alpha to omega: The Greek Alphabet of Sampling 2020 CIDR 5.350539e-05
8,389 PARQO: Penalty-Aware Robust Plan Selection in Query Optimization 2024 VLDB 5.3413016e-05
8,403 The Case for Learned In-Memory Joins 2023 VLDB 5.3389852e-05
8,477 TreeSensing: Linearly Compressing Sketches with Flexibility 2023 SIGMOD 5.3332727e-05
8,524 ROME: Robust Query Optimization via Parallel Multi-Plan Execution 2024 SIGMOD 5.3231221e-05
8,580 Conditional Cuckoo Filters 2021 SIGMOD 5.3100462e-05
8,636 PBench: Workload Synthesizer with Real Statistics for Cloud Analytics Benchmarking 2025 VLDB 5.2981619e-05
8,641 Making RDBMSs Efficient on Graph Workloads Through Predefined Joins 2022 VLDB 5.2970759e-05
8,650 PostCENN: PostgreSQL with Machine Learning Models for Cardinality Estimation 2021 VLDB 5.2948655e-05
8,651 Hybrid Mixed Integer Linear Programming for Large-Scale Join Order Optimisation 2026 VLDB 5.2945994e-05
8,771 Automatic Indexing in Oracle 2025 VLDB 5.2806451e-05
8,800 PACE: Poisoning Attacks on Learned Cardinality Estimation 2024 SIGMOD 5.2742531e-05
8,850 SkinnerMT: Parallelizing for Efficiency and Robustness in Adaptive Query Processing on Multicore Platforms 2023 VLDB 5.2645282e-05
8,851 Workload-driven, Lazy Discovery of Data Dependencies for Query Optimization 2022 CIDR 5.2644901e-05
8,983 Resource-Adaptive Query Execution with Paged Memory Management 2025 CIDR 5.2433703e-05
9,012 ByteCard: Enhancing ByteDance’s Data Warehouse with Learned Cardinality Estimation 2024 SIGMOD 5.2375369e-05
9,052 Optimizing Disjunctive Queries with Tagged Execution 2024 SIGMOD 5.230408e-05
9,113 Presto’s History-based Query Optimizer 2024 VLDB 5.2276066e-05
9,115 Check Out the Big Brain on BRAD: Simplifying Cloud Data Processing with Learned Automated Data Meshes 2023 VLDB 5.2271833e-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 0.0023947656
91 On the Propagation of Errors in the Size of Join Results 1991 SIGMOD 0.0003475226
98 LEO - DB2's LEarning Optimizer 2001 VLDB 0.00034106982
103 Selectivity Estimation Without the Attribute Value Independence Assumption 1997 VLDB 0.00033894985
160 CORDS: Automatic Discovery of Correlations and Soft Functional Dependencies 2004 SIGMOD 0.00027837289
255 The History of Histograms (abridged) 2003 VLDB 0.00022981861
386 Preventing Bad Plans by Bounding the Impact of Cardinality Estimation Errors 2009 VLDB 0.00019444411
397 R* Optimizer Validation and Performance Evaluation for Local Queries 1986 SIGMOD 0.00019157058
569 Towards a Robust Query Optimizer: A Principled and Practical Approach 2005 SIGMOD 0.00016245271
884 Dynamic Programming Strikes Back 2008 SIGMOD 0.00013267935
1,060 Lightweight Graphical Models for Selectivity Estimation Without Independence Assumptions 2011 VLDB 0.00012224575
1,606 The Picasso Database Query Optimizer Visualizer 2010 VLDB 0.00010089789
1,891 CS2: A New Database Synopsis for Query Estimation 2013 SIGMOD 9.4184294e-05
1,929 Consistently Estimating the Selectivity of Conjuncts of Predicates 2005 VLDB 9.3546057e-05
1,987 Plan Bouquets: Query Processing without Selectivity Estimation 2014 SIGMOD 9.250242e-05
2,245 Cache-Efficient Aggregation: Hashing Is Sorting 2015 SIGMOD 8.7649358e-05
2,251 Counter Strike: Generic Top-Down Join Enumeration for Hypergraphs 2013 VLDB 8.7511987e-05
2,530 Adaptive and Big Data Scale Parallel Execution in Oracle 2013 VLDB 8.3391175e-05
2,891 Query Optimizers: Time to Rethink the Contract? 2009 SIGMOD 7.9021718e-05
3,367 Exact Cardinality Query Optimization for Optimizer Testing 2009 VLDB 7.3719456e-05
3,797 Query Simplification: Graceful Degradation for Join-Order Optimization 2009 SIGMOD 7.0163619e-05
4,052 Of Snowstorms and Bushy Trees 2014 VLDB 6.8283077e-05
6,800 ROX: Run-time Optimization of XQueries 2009 SIGMOD 5.6792071e-05
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