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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
0.00061463175
Overall Rank
15 | 99.91%
DOI
10.14778/2850583.2850594
PDF
Download (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

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 333 citing papers.

Rank Citing Paper Year Venue Pagerank
6,906 LPLM: A Neural Language Model for Cardinality Estimation of LIKE-Queries 2024 SIGMOD 5.634971e-05
7,092 E2ETune: End-to-End Knob Tuning via Fine-tuned Generative Language Model 2025 VLDB 5.5868637e-05
7,094 Plan Stitch: Harnessing the Best of Many Plans 2018 VLDB 5.5863735e-05
7,238 Refactoring Index Tuning Process with Benefit Estimation 2024 VLDB 5.5624225e-05
7,257 RCRank: Multimodal Ranking of Root Causes of Slow Queries in Cloud Database Systems 2025 VLDB 5.5579707e-05
7,347 Scalable Multi-Query Execution using Reinforcement Learning 2021 SIGMOD 5.5308106e-05
7,363 Blueprinting the Cloud: Unifying and Automatically Optimizing Cloud Data Infrastructures with BRAD 2024 VLDB 5.5279826e-05
7,394 ADOPT: Adaptively Optimizing Attribute Orders for Worst-Case Optimal Join Algorithms via Reinforcement Learning 2023 VLDB 5.5202266e-05
7,432 POLAR: Adaptive and Non-invasive Join Order Selection via Plans of Least Resistance 2024 VLDB 5.5133928e-05
7,496 Fast Detection of Denial Constraint Violations 2022 VLDB 5.4968024e-05
7,561 Learned Offline Query Planning via Bayesian Optimization 2025 SIGMOD 5.4784915e-05
7,587 Convolution and Cross-Correlation of Count Sketches Enables Fast Cardinality Estimation of Multi-Join Queries 2024 SIGMOD 5.4745198e-05
7,619 On the Calculation of Optimality Ranges for Relational Query Execution Plans 2018 SIGMOD 5.4665491e-05
7,768 DBG-PT: A Large Language Model Assisted Query Performance Regression Debugger 2024 VLDB 5.4392507e-05
7,827 Parachute: Single-Pass Bi-Directional Information Passing 2025 VLDB 5.4297836e-05
7,844 Bespoke OLAP: Synthesizing Workload-Specific One-size-fits-one Database Engines 2026 VLDB 5.4255843e-05
7,887 Building Advanced SQL Analytics From Low-Level Plan Operators 2021 SIGMOD 5.4162508e-05
7,927 A Practical Approach to Groupjoin and Nested Aggregates 2021 VLDB 5.4082473e-05
7,936 Avoiding Materialisation for Guarded Aggregate Queries 2025 VLDB 5.4070923e-05
7,942 NOCAP: Near-Optimal Correlation-Aware Partitioning Joins 2023 SIGMOD 5.4055234e-05
7,983 Excalibur: A Virtual Machine for Adaptive Fine-grained JIT-Compiled Query Execution based on VOILA 2023 VLDB 5.3962907e-05
7,989 Leveraging Dynamic and Heterogeneous Workload Knowledge to Boost the Performance of Index Advisors 2024 VLDB 5.3951416e-05
7,997 The Holon Approach for Simultaneously Tuning Multiple Components in a Self-Driving Database Management System with Machine Learning via Synthesized Proto-Actions 2024 VLDB 5.3938336e-05
8,060 JoinSketch: A Sketch Algorithm for Accurate and Unbiased Inner-Product Estimation 2023 SIGMOD 5.382134e-05
8,064 Efficiently Computing Join Orders with Heuristic Search 2023 SIGMOD 5.3813708e-05
8,096 Two Birds with One Stone: Efficient Deep Learning over Mislabeled Data through Subset Selection 2025 SIGMOD 5.3739121e-05
8,154 Thrifty Query Execution via Incrementability 2020 SIGMOD 5.3732833e-05
8,182 A Concave Path to Low-overhead Robust Query Processing 2018 VLDB 5.3669522e-05
8,188 Efficient Query Re-optimization with Judicious Subquery Selections 2023 SIGMOD 5.3649397e-05
8,225 Grep: A Graph Learning Based Database Partitioning System 2023 SIGMOD 5.3583852e-05
8,274 The Case for NLP-Enhanced Database Tuning: Towards Tuning Tools that “Read the Manual” 2021 VLDB 5.3477381e-05
8,361 MONSOON: Multi-Step Optimization and Execution of Queries with Partially Obscured Predicates 2020 SIGMOD 5.3310744e-05
8,363 alpha to omega: The Greek Alphabet of Sampling 2020 CIDR 5.3305234e-05
8,389 GenJoin: Conditional Generative Plan-to-Plan Query Optimizer that Learns from Subplan Hints 2026 SIGMOD 5.3250456e-05
8,412 PARQO: Penalty-Aware Robust Plan Selection in Query Optimization 2024 VLDB 5.3211467e-05
8,419 The Case for Learned In-Memory Joins 2023 VLDB 5.3198816e-05
8,499 TreeSensing: Linearly Compressing Sketches with Flexibility 2023 SIGMOD 5.3131213e-05
8,550 ROME: Robust Query Optimization via Parallel Multi-Plan Execution 2024 SIGMOD 5.3030089e-05
8,604 Conditional Cuckoo Filters 2021 SIGMOD 5.2899825e-05
8,657 LIMAO: A Framework for Lifelong Modular Learned Query Optimization 2025 VLDB 5.2790784e-05
8,662 PBench: Workload Synthesizer with Real Statistics for Cloud Analytics Benchmarking 2025 VLDB 5.2781431e-05
8,667 Making RDBMSs Efficient on Graph Workloads Through Predefined Joins 2022 VLDB 5.2770612e-05
8,675 PostCENN: PostgreSQL with Machine Learning Models for Cardinality Estimation 2021 VLDB 5.2751633e-05
8,677 Hybrid Mixed Integer Linear Programming for Large-Scale Join Order Optimisation 2026 VLDB 5.2745941e-05
8,798 Automatic Indexing in Oracle 2025 VLDB 5.2606925e-05
8,825 PACE: Poisoning Attacks on Learned Cardinality Estimation 2024 SIGMOD 5.2543246e-05
8,872 SkinnerMT: Parallelizing for Efficiency and Robustness in Adaptive Query Processing on Multicore Platforms 2023 VLDB 5.2459616e-05
8,873 Workload-driven, Lazy Discovery of Data Dependencies for Query Optimization 2022 CIDR 5.2459234e-05
8,989 Conformal Prediction for Verifiable Learned Query Optimization 2025 VLDB 5.2304457e-05
9,011 Improving DBMS Scheduling Decisions with Accurate Performance Prediction on Concurrent Queries 2025 VLDB 5.2238303e-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 0.0023948467
91 On the Propagation of Errors in the Size of Join Results 1991 SIGMOD 0.00034691614
98 LEO - DB2's LEarning Optimizer 2001 VLDB 0.00034050614
103 Selectivity Estimation Without the Attribute Value Independence Assumption 1997 VLDB 0.00033847446
160 CORDS: Automatic Discovery of Correlations and Soft Functional Dependencies 2004 SIGMOD 0.00027775994
254 The History of Histograms (abridged) 2003 VLDB 0.00022999992
381 Preventing Bad Plans by Bounding the Impact of Cardinality Estimation Errors 2009 VLDB 0.00019497061
396 R* Optimizer Validation and Performance Evaluation for Local Queries 1986 SIGMOD 0.00019119719
568 Towards a Robust Query Optimizer: A Principled and Practical Approach 2005 SIGMOD 0.00016221103
881 Dynamic Programming Strikes Back 2008 SIGMOD 0.0001324243
1,061 Lightweight Graphical Models for Selectivity Estimation Without Independence Assumptions 2011 VLDB 0.00012207625
1,604 The Picasso Database Query Optimizer Visualizer 2010 VLDB 0.00010086711
1,896 CS2: A New Database Synopsis for Query Estimation 2013 SIGMOD 9.4010932e-05
1,935 Consistently Estimating the Selectivity of Conjuncts of Predicates 2005 VLDB 9.3407959e-05
1,987 Plan Bouquets: Query Processing without Selectivity Estimation 2014 SIGMOD 9.2323722e-05
2,248 Cache-Efficient Aggregation: Hashing Is Sorting 2015 SIGMOD 8.7484225e-05
2,261 Counter Strike: Generic Top-Down Join Enumeration for Hypergraphs 2013 VLDB 8.7351549e-05
2,527 Adaptive and Big Data Scale Parallel Execution in Oracle 2013 VLDB 8.3243069e-05
2,888 Query Optimizers: Time to Rethink the Contract? 2009 SIGMOD 7.8895201e-05
3,361 Exact Cardinality Query Optimization for Optimizer Testing 2009 VLDB 7.3621595e-05
3,807 Query Simplification: Graceful Degradation for Join-Order Optimization 2009 SIGMOD 6.9902343e-05
4,048 Of Snowstorms and Bushy Trees 2014 VLDB 6.817438e-05
6,816 ROX: Run-time Optimization of XQueries 2009 SIGMOD 5.6593309e-05
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