Cursor Pagination vs Offset-Based Pagination in Livewire

The pagination process is one of the most important components of any application that displays a lot of data. Offset pagination has been traditionally used to break up large datasets into manageable chunks, preventing systems from becoming overwhelmed and users from becoming lost. Cursor pagination, however, has emerged as a compelling alternative to offset pagination, especially for dynamic datasets. Here's why cursor pagination often outperforms offset pagination.

An application that displays a lot of data must have a pagination process. Traditionally, offset pagination has been used to break up large datasets into manageable chunks, preventing systems from becoming overwhelmed and users from getting lost. It has emerged as a compelling alternative to offset pagination, especially for dynamic datasets. Here is why cursor pagination performs better than offset pagination.

Example SQL Query:

SELECT * FROM articles LIMIT 10 OFFSET 20;

Cursor Pagination:

Cursor pagination works differently. Instead of relying on arbitrary offsets, it uses a unique pointer (the cursor) from the previous result set to fetch the next set of records.

If the last article ID you fetched was 45 and you wanted the next set of articles, the cursor would be the ID 45.

Example SQL Query:

SELECT * FROM articles WHERE id > 45 ORDER BY id ASC LIMIT 10;

What are the advantages of cursor pagination?

• With offset-based pagination, if a record is added or removed, subsequent pages may display duplicate or missed records. Cursor pagination does not have this problem.
  
  Example:
  If you view page 1 with records 1-10, and someone deletes record 5, then when you move to page 2, you'll see record 10 again.
  
  Using cursor pagination, if you viewed records up to the ID 10 and someone deleted any prior records, you will still view records from ID 10 on.

• Performance: Offset-based pagination becomes increasingly inefficient as datasets grow, especially with very high offsets. Databases must scan the entire set of prior records, which becomes slower with increasing offsets. In databases with cursor pagination, index searches can be optimized to jump directly to the cursor position, resulting in more consistent performance.

• If new data pushes older content to subsequent pages, a common problem with offset-based pagination, cursor pagination offers a more consistent user experience.
  
  Example
  If you view page 1 and 15 posts are added in the meantime, when you click to view page 2, you might miss 5 posts which were pushed from the end of page 1 to the beginning of page 2.
  
  Cursor pagination allows you to continue where you left off, regardless of how many new posts are added.

• Modern UIs often employ infinite scrolling (loading new content as the user scrolls). Cursor pagination complements this approach by always knowing the last position, ensuring a smoother UX without recalculations.

Enable Cursor Pagination in Livewire

public function render(){
    return view('show-posts', [
     'posts' => Post::cursorPaginate(10),
    ]);
}