Keyset Pagination

ELI5 — The Vibe Check

Keyset pagination is cursor-based pagination's more explicit cousin. Instead of an opaque cursor, you use actual column values (like 'give me everything with an ID greater than 500 and created after Tuesday'). It's deterministic, efficient on large datasets, and doesn't degrade as you go deeper — unlike OFFSET which makes your database cry on page 10,000.

Real Talk

Keyset pagination (also called seek pagination) uses WHERE clause conditions on indexed columns to fetch the next page of results. It requires a deterministic sort order and uses the last row's values as the seek point. It maintains O(log n) performance regardless of depth, unlike OFFSET which degrades linearly.

When You'll Hear This

"Keyset pagination on our 10-million-row table returns in 2ms regardless of page depth." / "OFFSET 100000 scans and discards rows; keyset pagination seeks directly to the right spot."