SQL rank functions can be handy things to have when analysing data. Most major RDBMSs implement a similar bunch of ranking functions, usually with the same names. These rank functions allow us to assign rankings to rows based on specific criteria.

In this article, we’ll look at six commonly used SQL ranking functions, and observe how they differ. We’ll throw them all together into a single query and see their results side by side.

The rank functions in question are: ROW_NUMBER(), RANK(), DENSE_RANK(), NTILE(), PERCENT_RANK(), and CUME_DIST().

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Most SQL databases have a handful of “ranking” functions that allow us to rank data. By “handful”, I mean there’s a common set of around six SQL rank functions that most of the major RDBMSs appear to support.

SQL rank functions allow us to assign ranks or row numbers to result sets.

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