Embracing and exploiting data skew during a join or groupby

A hybrid approach for performing a join in a database includes: obtaining a distribution of data values in a join column of an inner table; using the distribution, identifying one or more data ranges containing skew; for each data range identified as containing skew, performing, by the processor, the join operation using a skew specific join scheme; and for each data range not identified as containing skew, performing, by the processor, the join operation using a non-skew specific join scheme. One skew specific join scheme involves a compact array table, a highly populated array that represents the range of values that the inner table join column contains. One non-skew specific join scheme involves a compact hash table, an optimized hash table that allows high load factors with a small memory overhead. In combining multiple join techniques, joins may be performed more efficiently for skewed and non-skewed data.