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Learned Cardinality Estimation: A Design Space Exploration and A Comparative Evaluation

Summary: Systematic design-space exploration and comparative evaluation of state-of-the-art learned cardinality estimators. Highlights when they outperform histograms/sampling on multi-predicate, multi-column, and multi-table queries, guiding practical optimizer deployment. (summarized by gpt-5.6-luna on Jul 24 2026)

Paper ID
hd506284ff0e33503
Venue
VLDB
Year
2022
Pagerank
8.3477168e-05
Overall Rank
2,522 | 83.05%
DOI
10.14778/3485450.3485459

Incoming Non-self Citations Over Time

Authors

BibTeX Citation

@article{sun_vldb22,
        title = {{Learned Cardinality Estimation: A Design Space Exploration and A Comparative Evaluation}},
        author = {Sun, Ji and Zhang, Jintao and Sun, Zhaoyan and Li, Guoliang and Tang, Nan},
        journal = {PVLDB},
        series = {{VLDB} '22},
        volume = {15},
        number = {1},
        pages = {85--97},
        doi = {10.14778/3485450.3485459},
        url = {https://doi.org/10.14778/3485450.3485459},
        year = {2022}
}

Incoming Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)

Showing 37 of 37 citing papers.

Rank Citing Paper Year Venue Pagerank
2,395 A Learned Query Rewrite System using Monte Carlo Tree Search 2022 VLDB 8.5281914e-05
2,690 Cost-based or Learning-based? A Hybrid Query Optimizer for Query Plan Selection 2022 VLDB 8.1258173e-05
3,697 Learned Index: A Comprehensive Experimental Evaluation 2023 VLDB 7.0882335e-05
3,741 FACE: A Normalizing Flow based Cardinality Estimator 2022 VLDB 7.0594076e-05
4,202 Kepler: Robust Learning for Faster Parametric Query Optimization 2023 SIGMOD 6.7374091e-05
4,311 ALECE: An Attention-based Learned Cardinality Estimator for SPJ Queries on Dynamic Workloads 2024 VLDB 6.6727978e-05
4,683 AutoSteer: Learned Query Optimization for Any SQL Database 2023 VLDB 6.4716143e-05
5,481 A Comparative Study and Component Analysis of Query Plan Representation Techniques in ML4DB Studies 2024 VLDB 6.1125124e-05
5,683 How Good are Learned Cost Models, Really? Insights from Query Optimization Tasks 2025 SIGMOD 6.0392183e-05
5,871 PilotScope: Steering Databases with Machine Learning Drivers 2024 VLDB 5.9639223e-05
6,105 Breaking It Down: An In-depth Study of Index Advisors 2024 VLDB 5.8860941e-05
6,469 Cardinality Estimation over Knowledge Graphs with Embeddings and Graph Neural Networks 2024 SIGMOD 5.7743636e-05
6,660 Speeding Up End-to-end Query Execution via Learning-based Progressive Cardinality Estimation 2023 SIGMOD 5.7178404e-05
6,791 dbET: Execution Time Distribution-based Plan Selection 2023 SIGMOD 5.6811782e-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
8,047 Cloud Databases: New Techniques, Challenges, and Opportunities 2022 VLDB 5.4006048e-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
8,659 ShadowAQP: Efficient Approximate Group-by and Join Query via Attribute-oriented Sample Size Allocation and Data Generation 2023 VLDB 5.2930951e-05
8,800 PACE: Poisoning Attacks on Learned Cardinality Estimation 2024 SIGMOD 5.2742531e-05
8,879 Spatial Query Optimization With Learning 2024 VLDB 5.2568354e-05
9,012 ByteCard: Enhancing ByteDance’s Data Warehouse with Learned Cardinality Estimation 2024 SIGMOD 5.2375369e-05
9,113 Presto’s History-based Query Optimizer 2024 VLDB 5.2276066e-05
9,145 One Seed, Two Birds: A Unified Learned Structure for Exact and Approximate Counting 2024 SIGMOD 5.220115e-05
9,372 Efficient and Effective Cardinality Estimation for Skyline Family 2023 SIGMOD 5.1868213e-05
9,610 LIMAO: A Framework for Lifelong Modular Learned Query Optimization 2025 VLDB 5.1526493e-05
9,641 CEDA: Learned Cardinality Estimation with Domain Adaptation 2023 VLDB 5.1456789e-05
9,954 Conformal Prediction for Verifiable Learned Query Optimization 2025 VLDB 5.1038322e-05
10,184 Path-centric Cardinality Estimation for Subgraph Matching 2025 VLDB 5.0651993e-05
10,216 PRICE: A Pretrained Model for Cross-Database Cardinality Estimation 2025 VLDB 5.0584922e-05
10,336 An Elephant Under The Microscope: Analyzing The Interaction Of Optimizer Components In PostgreSQL 2025 SIGMOD 5.0200193e-05
10,882 Efficient GPU-Accelerated Local Subgraph Counting 2026 VLDB 4.9793485e-05
10,938 Towards Industrial-Scale Parametric Query Optimization 2026 VLDB 4.9793485e-05
11,059 Index Intersection for High-Dimensional Range Queries 2026 VLDB 4.9793485e-05
11,333 The Accuracy of Cardinality Estimators: Unraveling the Evaluation Result Conundrum 2025 VLDB 4.9793485e-05
11,443 LEAP: A Low-cost Spark SQL Query Optimizer using Pairwise Comparison 2025 VLDB 4.9793485e-05
11,453 RankPQO: Learning-to-Rank for Parametric Query Optimization 2025 VLDB 4.9793485e-05
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Outgoing Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)

Showing 24 of 24 cited papers.

Citations counted here include only citations to other VLDB/SIGMOD/CIDR/PODS papers in this database.

Rank Cited Paper Year Venue Pagerank
15 How Good Are Query Optimizers, Really? 2016 VLDB 0.00061066921
79 Practical Selectivity Estimation through Adaptive Sampling 1990 SIGMOD 0.00036487763
85 Learned Cardinalities: Estimating Correlated Joins with Deep Learning 2019 CIDR 0.00035864347
255 The History of Histograms (abridged) 2003 VLDB 0.00022981861
286 Selectivity Estimation using Probabilistic Models 2001 SIGMOD 0.0002211981
318 DeepDB: Learn from Data, not from Queries! 2020 VLDB 0.00021167555
386 Preventing Bad Plans by Bounding the Impact of Cardinality Estimation Errors 2009 VLDB 0.00019444411
406 Deep Unsupervised Cardinality Estimation 2020 VLDB 0.00019045544
461 An End-to-End Learning-based Cost Estimator 2020 VLDB 0.00017829982
512 NeuroCard: One Cardinality Estimator for All Tables 2021 VLDB 0.00017050173
688 Cardinality Estimation Done Right: Index-Based Join Sampling 2017 CIDR 0.00014753664
692 Selectivity Estimation for Range Predicates using Lightweight Models 2019 VLDB 0.00014741011
795 Random Sampling over Joins Revisited 2018 SIGMOD 0.00013938779
1,060 Lightweight Graphical Models for Selectivity Estimation Without Independence Assumptions 2011 VLDB 0.00012224575
1,064 Are We Ready For Learned Cardinality Estimation? 2021 VLDB 0.00012202282
1,156 QuickSel: Quick Selectivity Learning with Mixture Models 2020 SIGMOD 0.00011777105
1,257 Sampling-Based Query Re-Optimization 2016 SIGMOD 0.00011310561
1,508 Self-Tuning, GPU-Accelerated Kernel Density Models for Multidimensional Selectivity Estimation 2015 SIGMOD 0.00010440205
1,580 Deep Learning Models for Selectivity Estimation of Multi-Attribute Queries 2020 SIGMOD 0.00010180835
2,216 Estimating Join Selectivities using Bandwidth-Optimized Kernel Density Models 2017 VLDB 8.8177753e-05
2,842 Query Performance Prediction for Concurrent Queries using Graph Embedding 2020 VLDB 7.949193e-05
2,908 AI Meets Database: AI4DB and DB4AI 2021 SIGMOD 7.8742664e-05
3,682 openGauss: An Autonomous Database System 2021 VLDB 7.1013922e-05
4,741 Machine Learning for Databases 2021 VLDB 6.4410027e-05
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