Page vs Slice · Pagination and Sorting in Hibernate & JPA | Hibernate & JPA

Two Return Types

	`Page<T>`	`Slice<T>`	`List<T>` + Pageable
Extra count query	yes	no	no
Knows total pages/elements	yes	no	no
Knows if a next page exists	yes	yes (fetches size + 1 rows)	no
Best for	admin tables with page numbers	infinite scroll, "Load more"	just the rows

Slice<Product> findByCategoryName(String category, Pageable pageable);   // no COUNT(*)

How Slice Knows There Is More

Example

A Slice asks the database for one row more than the page size. If that extra row exists, there is a next page; the extra row is dropped.

import java.util.*;
import java.util.stream.*;

public class Main {
    static final List<Integer> TABLE = IntStream.rangeClosed(1, 23).boxed().toList(); // 23 product ids
    static int queries = 0;

    static List<Integer> select(int offset, int limit) {
        queries++;
        return TABLE.subList(Math.min(offset, TABLE.size()), Math.min(offset + limit, TABLE.size()));
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        int size = 10;
        System.out.println("Slice (limit size+1, no count):");
        for (int page = 0; ; page++) {
            List<Integer> rows = select(page * size, size + 1);
            boolean hasNext = rows.size() > size;
            List<Integer> content = rows.subList(0, Math.min(size, rows.size()));
            System.out.println("  page " + page + " " + content + " hasNext=" + hasNext);
            if (!hasNext) break;
        }
        System.out.println("  queries: " + queries);

        queries = 0;
        System.out.println("Page (data + count for every page):");
        for (int page = 0; page < 3; page++) {
            select(page * size, size);
            queries++;                                    // select count(*) ...
        }
        System.out.println("  queries: " + queries + ", totalPages=" + (TABLE.size() + size - 1) / size);
    }
}

Output

Slice (limit size+1, no count):
  page 0 [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10] hasNext=true
  page 1 [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20] hasNext=true
  page 2 [21, 22, 23] hasNext=false
  queries: 3
Page (data + count for every page):
  queries: 6, totalPages=3

Count Query Cost

Tip: On big tables with complex filters, count(*) can be slower than the data query itself. Spring Data skips the count when the first page already holds fewer rows than the page size. For mobile feeds, prefer Slice.