NOT IN vs NOT EXISTS

Question

Which of these queries is the faster?

NOT EXISTS:

SELECT ProductID, ProductName 
FROM Northwind..Products p
WHERE NOT EXISTS (
    SELECT 1 
    FROM         


        

Answer 1

It depends..

SELECT x.col
FROM big_table x
WHERE x.key IN( SELECT key FROM really_big_table );

would not be relatively slow the isn't much to limit size of what the query check to see if they key is in. EXISTS would be preferable in this case.

But, depending on the DBMS's optimizer, this could be no different.

As an example of when EXISTS is better

SELECT x.col
FROM big_table x
WHERE EXISTS( SELECT key FROM really_big_table WHERE key = x.key);
  AND id = very_limiting_criteria