Convert SQL LIMIT and OFFSET to MongoDB limit() and skip()

LIMIT / OFFSET to limit() / skip()

SQL uses LIMIT and OFFSET for pagination. MongoDB provides limit() and skip() cursor methods, or $limit and $skip aggregation stages.

Example SQL

SELECT * FROM articles
ORDER BY created_at DESC
LIMIT 20 OFFSET 40

Generated MongoDB Query (find)

db.articles.find({}).sort({
  created_at: -1
}).skip(40).limit(20)

Generated MongoDB Query (aggregate)

db.articles.aggregate([
  { $sort: { created_at: -1 } },
  { $skip: 40 },
  { $limit: 20 }
])

Pagination Pattern

The standard offset-based pagination maps directly:

• Page 1: LIMIT 20 OFFSET 0 = .skip(0).limit(20)
• Page 2: LIMIT 20 OFFSET 20 = .skip(20).limit(20)
• Page 3: LIMIT 20 OFFSET 40 = .skip(40).limit(20)

LIMIT Without OFFSET

A simple LIMIT without OFFSET (starting from the beginning) only needs .limit():

SELECT * FROM users LIMIT 10

db.users.find({}).limit(10)

Performance Warning for Large Offsets

MongoDB's skip() still scans and discards the skipped documents, meaning performance degrades linearly with the offset value. For large collections, cursor-based (keyset) pagination is recommended:

// Instead of skip(10000).limit(20), use:
db.articles.find({
  created_at: { $lt: lastSeenDate }
}).sort({ created_at: -1 }).limit(20)

This approach uses an indexed field to efficiently seek to the correct position.

Method Chain Order

For find() queries, .sort(), .skip(), and .limit() can be chained in any order — MongoDB always applies them as sort first, then skip, then limit. In the aggregate pipeline, however, the order of stages matters and must be explicit.