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EXPLAIN Visualization

Click Explain in the query editor toolbar to get the execution plan. PostgreSQL shows a dropdown with EXPLAIN (estimated plan) and EXPLAIN ANALYZE (runs the query and shows actual timing). MySQL, MariaDB, SQLite, and other databases show a single Explain button.
EXPLAIN diagram view

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View Modes

Toggle between three views using the segmented control above the results: Diagram shows the plan as boxes connected by arrows, top to bottom. Nodes are color-coded by cost: green (cheap) to red (expensive). Click a node to see full details in a popover. Zoom controls are in the bottom-right corner.
EXPLAIN tree view
Tree shows the plan as an expandable outline list. Click a row to see its properties in the detail panel below. Cost and row estimates are shown on the right side of each row. Raw shows the original EXPLAIN output as text (JSON for PostgreSQL and MySQL, plain text for others).

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Database Support

DatabaseFormatVariants
PostgreSQLJSON (parsed into diagram/tree)EXPLAIN, EXPLAIN ANALYZE
MySQL/MariaDBJSON (parsed into diagram/tree)EXPLAIN
SQLiteEXPLAIN QUERY PLAN (parsed into tree)Explain
ClickHouseIndented textPlan, Pipeline, AST, Syntax, Estimate
DuckDBIndented textExplain
Cloudflare D1EXPLAIN QUERY PLANQuery Plan
BigQueryDry run cost estimateDry Run

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Plan Details

Each node in the plan shows:
  • Operation: Seq Scan, Index Scan, Hash Join, Nested Loop, Sort, etc.
  • Table: which table the operation accesses
  • Cost: startup and total cost estimates (PostgreSQL format: 0.00..45.18)
  • Rows: estimated number of rows
  • Actual time: real execution time per node (EXPLAIN ANALYZE only)
Click a node to see all properties including join type, index name, filter conditions, and sort keys.
EXPLAIN does not execute the query. EXPLAIN ANALYZE executes it and shows actual timing; use it cautiously on production systems.