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 inse