# RDB2G-Bench: A Comprehensive Benchmark for Automatic Graph Modeling of Relational Databases

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.01360 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.01360/

## Key facts

- Cited by 8 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 24 of its 44 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 2 Jun 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 24 of 24)

- [Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6980/) (2014)
- [Chain-of-Thought Prompting Elicits Reasoning in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.11903/) (2022)
- [Inductive Representation Learning on Large Graphs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.02216/) (2017)
- [XGBoost: A Scalable Tree Boosting System](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1603.02754/) (2016)
- [How Powerful are Graph Neural Networks?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.00826/) (2018)
- [Fast Graph Representation Learning with PyTorch Geometric](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.02428/) (2019)
- [Modeling Relational Data with Graph Convolutional Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.06103/) (2017)
- [Strategies for Pre-training Graph Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.12265/) (2019)
- [Regularized Evolution for Image Classifier Architecture Search](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.01548/) (2018)
- [Revisiting Deep Learning Models for Tabular Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.11959/) (2021)
- [Recipe for a General, Powerful, Scalable Graph Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.12454/) (2022)
- [TabNet: Attentive Interpretable Tabular Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.07442/) (2019)
- [Designing Neural Network Architectures using Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.02167/) (2016)
- [Random Search and Reproducibility for Neural Architecture Search](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.07638/) (2019)
- [Identity-aware Graph Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.10320/) (2021)
- [BANANAS: Bayesian Optimization with Neural Architectures for Neural Architecture Search](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.11858/) (2019)
- [RelBench: A Benchmark for Deep Learning on Relational Databases](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.20060/) (2024)
- [Relational Deep Learning: Graph Representation Learning on Relational Databases](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.04615/) (2023)
- [Supervised Learning on Relational Databases with Graph Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.02046/) (2020)
- [RelGNN: Composite Message Passing for Relational Deep Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.06784/) (2025)
- [PyTorch Frame: A Modular Framework for Multi-Modal Tabular Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.00776/) (2024)
- [ContextGNN: Beyond Two-Tower Recommendation Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.19513/) (2024)
- [AutoG: Towards automatic graph construction from tabular data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.15282/) (2025)
- [RDBench: ML Benchmark for Relational Databases](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.16837/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 8 of 8)

- [No Need to Train Your RDB Foundation Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.13697/) (2026)
- [RDBLearn: Simple In-Context Prediction Over Relational Databases](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.18495/) (2026)
- [OpenRFM: Dissecting Relational In-Context Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.04320/) (2026)
- [ReFuGe: Feature Generation for Prediction Tasks on Relational Databases with LLM Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.17735/) (2026)
- [NGDB-Zoo: Towards Efficient and Scalable Neural Graph Databases Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.21597/) (2026)
- [Relatron: Automating Relational Machine Learning over Relational Databases](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.22552/) (2026)
- [Is Fixing Schema Graphs Necessary? Full-Resolution Graph Structure Learning for Relational Deep Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.21475/) (2026)
- [AutoGrable: What Is a Good Graph for a Table?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.11431/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Recent advances have demonstrated the effectiveness of graph-based learning on relational databases (RDBs) for predictive tasks. Such approaches require transforming RDBs into graphs, a process we refer to as RDB-to-graph modeling, where rows of tables are represented as nodes and foreign-key relationships as edges. Yet, effective modeling of RDBs into graphs remains challenging. Specifically, there exist numerous ways to model RDBs into graphs, and performance on predictive tasks varies significantly depending on the chosen graph model of RDBs. In our analysis, we find that the best-performing graph model can yield up to a 10% higher performance compared to the common heuristic rule for graph modeling, which remains non-trivial to identify. To foster research on intelligent RDB-to-graph modeling, we introduce RDB2G-Bench, the first benchmark framework for evaluating such methods. We construct extensive datasets covering 5 real-world RDBs and 12 predictive tasks, resulting in around 50k graph model-performance pairs for efficient and reproducible evaluations. Thanks to our precomputed datasets, we were able to benchmark 10 automatic RDB-to-graph modeling methods on the 12 tasks about 380x faster than on-the-fly evaluation, which requires repeated GNN training. Our analysis of the datasets and benchmark results reveals key structural patterns affecting graph model effectiveness, along with practical implications for effective graph modeling. Our datasets and code are available at https://github.com/chlehdwon/RDB2G-Bench.