What is Query Pushdown?

Query pushdown is a query optimization method that executes filters, aggregations, projections, and sometimes joins within the systems where data resides rather than transferring full datasets to a central query engine, reducing network movement, compute use, costs, and query latency. It supports both federated analytics across sources such as warehouses, databases, SaaS platforms, and lakehouses, and ingestion workflows that materialize selected results into tables or object storage for downstream analytics and AI uses. Its effectiveness varies by connector and source capabilities, SQL dialects, API limits, governance requirements, cross-region egress fees, and cloud pricing, making performance and cost outcomes difficult to predict. The Starburst team recommends verifying pushdown behavior with EXPLAIN plans, incorporating checks into development pipelines, using connector-specific settings and cost controls, materializing reusable federated results, applying dynamic filtering and fault tolerance where appropriate, monitoring source capacity, and enforcing row- and column-level governance before data is moved.

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