DuckDB supports profiling queries via the EXPLAIN and EXPLAIN ANALYZE statements.

EXPLAIN

To see the query plan of a query without executing it, run:

EXPLAIN ⟨query⟩;

The output of EXPLAIN contains the estimated cardinalities for each operator.

EXPLAIN (SQL)

New As of DuckDB 2.0, EXPLAIN (SQL) renders the optimized logical plan back as an executable DuckDB SQL string instead of as a plan tree:

sql EXPLAIN (SQL) SELECT 1 + 2 AS answer;

explain_key	explain_value
sql	SELECT CAST(3 AS INTEGER) AS answer

Because the output is the optimized plan, it can differ substantially from the input query (for example through join reordering, constant folding, or subquery introduction). The generated query preserves the result column names, column order, and logical types, but the exact formatting and any generated aliases are not a stable interface. EXPLAIN (SQL) does not execute the query, supports only SELECT, VALUES, WITH, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE and MERGE INTO statements, and cannot be combined with ANALYZE or FORMAT.

EXPLAIN ANALYZE

To profile a query, run:

EXPLAIN ANALYZE ⟨query⟩;

The EXPLAIN ANALYZE statement runs the query, and shows the actual cardinalities for each operator, as well as the cumulative wall-clock time spent in each operator.