Four Pagination Strategies for Enterprise Database Lists

Introduction When implementing a paginated list screen in a business application, the first idea that comes to mind is usually "fetch rows with OFFSET/LIMIT." But once you actually run it, the problems pile up fast: "The same row appeared again on the next page," "A record I saw earlier is gone," "Page 1000 takes forever to load." OFFSET/LIMIT alone can't solve all of these. I've been adding pagination support to a Java framework I'm building from scratch, which prompted me to revisit and organize the options. This article walks through four pagination strategies I've actually used in enterprise projects , along with their trade-offs. What Pagination Needs to Get Right Before diving in, let's define what a solid pagination implementation should provide: Correct data — no missing rows, no duplicates Consistency — minimal interference from other users' updates Acceptable DB load User-controlled sort order Two phenomena are worth calling out specifically: Row shift — When another user ins