Cursor vs Offset Pagination in EF Core: What Actually Works in Production

Cursor vs Offset Pagination in EF Core: What Actually Works in Production Pagination is easy to implement, but hard to get right when data grows. Most applications start with Skip/Take. It works fine… until it doesn’t. This article explains where each approach fits, what breaks, and how to choose properly. Why This Matters When pagination is wrong, you will see: slow queries on large pages duplicate or missing rows unnecessary database load The goal is not just pagination — it is consistent and scalable data access. 1. Offset Pagination (Skip/Take) The most common approach: var items = await context.Posts .AsNoTracking() .OrderByDescending(x => x.CreatedAt) .ThenByDescending(x => x.Id) .Skip((pageNumber - 1) * pageSize) .Take(pageSize) .ToListAsync(); Why it works well simple and predictable supports page numbers (page 1, 2, 3...) easy to expose in APIs Where it breaks Offset pagination becomes inefficient as the offset grows. Even if you request 20 rows, the database still proce