--- title : " Stop Using OFFSET for Pagination — It Won't Scale" published : true description : " LIMIT/OFFSET pagination degrades linearly with dataset size. Let me walk you through keyset cursor pagination for consistent O(1) performance at any page depth." tags : postgresql, api, architecture, performance canonical_url : https://blog.mvpfactory.co/stop-using-offset-for-pagination --- ## What We're Building By the end of this tutorial, you'll understand exactly why your paginated queries slow down as your dataset grows — and you'll have a working keyset cursor pagination pattern you can drop into any REST or GraphQL API. We'll use PostgreSQL and Kotlin (Ktor), but the principle applies everywhere. ## Prerequisites - Basic SQL knowledge (SELECT, WHERE, ORDER BY) - A PostgreSQL database with a non-trivial table (thousands of rows) - Familiarity with any backend framework (examples use Ktor) ## Step 1: See the Problem With Your Own Eyes Here is the minimal setup to get this working.…