Is there a performance difference between CTE Sub-Query Temporary Table or Table Variable

Question

In this excellent SO question  differences between CTE and sub-queries were discussed   I would like to specifically ask    In what circumstance is each of the following more efficient faster    CTE Sub-Query Temporary Table Table Variable   Traditionally  I ve used lots of temp tables in developing stored procedures - as they seem more readable than lots of intertwined sub-queries   Non-recursive CTEs encapsulate sets of data very well  and are very readable  but are there specific circumstances where one can say they will always perform better  or is it a case of having to always fiddle around with the different options to find the most efficient solution     EDIT    I ve recently been told that in terms of efficiency  temporary tables are a good first choice as they have an associated histogram i e  statistics

User · Answer

There is no rule  I find CTEs more readable  and use them unless they exhibit some performance problem  in which case I investigate the actual problem rather than guess that the CTE is the problem and try to re-write it using a different approach  There is usually more to the issue than the way I chose to declaratively state my intentions with the query   There are certainly cases when you can unravel CTEs or remove subqueries and replace them with a  temp table and reduce duration  This can be due to various things  such as stale stats  the inability to even get accurate stats  e g  joining to a table-valued function   parallelism  or even the inability to generate an optimal plan because of the complexity of the query  in which case breaking it up may give the optimizer a fighting chance   But there are also cases where the I O involved with creating a  temp table can outweigh the other performance aspects that may make a particular plan shape using a CTE less attractive   Quite honestly  there are way too many variables to provide a  correct  answer to your question  There is no predictable way to know when a query may tip in favor of one approach or another - just know that  in theory  the same semantics for a CTE or a single subquery should execute the exact same  I think your question would be more valuable if you present some cases where this is not true - it may be that you have discovered a limitation in the optimizer  or discovered a known one   or it may be that your queries are not semantically equivalent or that one contains an element that thwarts optimization   So I would suggest writing the query in a way that seems most natural to you  and only deviate when you discover an actual performance problem the optimizer is having  Personally I rank them CTE  then subquery  with  temp table being a last resort

User · Answer

temp is materalized and CTE is not   CTE is just syntax so in theory it is just a subquery   It is executed     temp is materialized    So an expensive CTE in a join that is execute many times may be better in a  temp    On the other side if it is an easy evaluation that is not executed but a few times then not worth the overhead of   temp   The are some people on SO that don t like table variable but I like them as the are materialized and faster to create than  temp   There are times when the query optimizer does better with a  temp compared to a table variable     The ability to create a PK on a  temp or table variable gives the query optimizer more information than a CTE  as you cannot declare a PK on a CTE

User · Answer

SQL is a declarative language  not a procedural language   That is  you construct a SQL statement to describe the results that you want   You are not telling the SQL engine how to do the work   As a general rule  it is a good idea to let the SQL engine and SQL optimizer find the best query plan   There are many person-years of effort that go into developing a SQL engine  so let the engineers do what they know how to do   Of course  there are situations where the query plan is not optimal   Then you want to use query hints  restructure the query  update statistics  use temporary tables  add indexes  and so on to get better performance   As for your question   The performance of CTEs and subqueries should  in theory  be the same since both provide the same information to the query optimizer   One difference is that a CTE used more than once could be easily identified and calculated once   The results could then be stored and read multiple times   Unfortunately  SQL Server does not seem to take advantage of this basic optimization method  you might call this common subquery elimination    Temporary tables are a different matter  because you are providing more guidance on how the query should be run   One major difference is that the optimizer can use statistics from the temporary table to establish its query plan   This can result in performance gains   Also  if you have a complicated CTE  subquery  that is used more than once  then storing it in a temporary table will often give a performance boost   The query is executed only once   The answer to your question is that you need to play around to get the performance you expect  particularly for complex queries that are run on a regular basis   In an ideal world  the query optimizer would find the perfect execution path   Although it often does  you may be able to find a way to get better performance

User · Answer

Just 2 things I think make it ALWAYS preferable to use a   Temp Table rather then a CTE are    You can not put a primary key on a CTE so the data being accessed by the CTE will have to traverse each one of the indexes in the CTE s tables rather then just accessing the PK or Index on the temp table  Because you can not add constraints  indexes and primary keys to a CTE they are more prone to bugs creeping in and bad data      -onedaywhen yesterday   Here is an example where  table constraints can prevent bad data which is not the case in CTE s  DECLARE  BadData TABLE                           ThisID int                        ThatID int    INSERT INTO  BadData          ThisID          ThatID           VALUES          1  1             1  2             2  2             1  1     IF OBJECT ID  tempdb   This   IS NOT NULL     DROP TABLE  This  CREATE TABLE  This                 ThisID int NOT NULL              ThatID int NOT NULL                         UNIQUE ThisID  ThatID     INSERT INTO  This SELECT   FROM  BadData  WITH This CTE      AS  SELECT              FROM  BadData       SELECT          FROM This CTE

[sql] Is there a performance difference between CTE , Sub-Query, Temporary Table or Table Variable?

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