SQL Views vs Temp Tables: Key Performance and Use-Case Differences Explained

Data analyst Michael Nocito published a technical comparison of SQL views and temporary tables on DEV Community in August 2026. A view stores only the query text and re-executes it on every read, while a temporary table stores the actual result rows after a single execution. Benchmarks on a 400,000-row SQLite orders table showed that reading a view took 467.6 ms per query, versus effectively zero milliseconds for the equivalent temp table. Over ten consecutive reads, the view accumulated nearly 4,700 ms in total execution time compared to just 0.2 ms for the temp table. The article concludes that temp tables are preferable when the same expensive aggregate is queried multiple times within a session, while views suit scenarios where up-to-date data is required on each read.