# Fixed Aggregation Features Can Rival GNNs

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.19449 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.19449/

## Key facts

- Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 54 of its 77 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 27 Jan 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 54)

- [Semi-Supervised Classification with Graph Convolutional Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1609.02907/) (2016)
- [Graph Attention Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.10903/) (2017)
- [A Unified Approach to Interpreting Model Predictions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.07874/) (2017)
- [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)
- [Neural Message Passing for Quantum Chemistry](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1704.01212/) (2017)
- [Simplifying Graph Convolutional Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.07153/) (2019)
- [Pitfalls of Graph Neural Network Evaluation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.05868/) (2018)
- [How Attentive are Graph Attention Networks?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.14491/) (2021)
- [Recipe for a General, Powerful, Scalable Graph Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.12454/) (2022)
- [Adaptive Universal Generalized PageRank Graph Neural Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.07988/) (2020)
- [Multi-scale Attributed Node Embedding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.13021/) (2019)
- [Principal Neighbourhood Aggregation for Graph Nets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.05718/) (2020)
- [Understanding over-squashing and bottlenecks on graphs via curvature](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.14522/) (2021)
- [A critical look at the evaluation of GNNs under heterophily: Are we really making progress?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.11640/) (2023)
- [SIGN: Scalable Inception Graph Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.11198/) (2020)
- [Wiki-CS: A Wikipedia-Based Benchmark for Graph Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.02901/) (2020)
- [A Fair Comparison of Graph Neural Networks for Graph Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.09893/) (2019)
- [NodeFormer: A Scalable Graph Structure Learning Transformer for Node Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.08385/) (2023)
- [CatBoost: gradient boosting with categorical features support](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.11363/) (2018)
- [Graph Neural Networks with Heterophily](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.13566/) (2020)
- [On Embeddings for Numerical Features in Tabular Deep Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.05556/) (2022)
- [Finding Global Homophily in Graph Neural Networks When Meeting Heterophily](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.07308/) (2022)
- [Exphormer: Sparse Transformers for Graphs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.06147/) (2023)
- [NAGphormer: A Tokenized Graph Transformer for Node Classification in Large Graphs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.04910/) (2022)
- [SGFormer: Simplifying and Empowering Transformers for Large-Graph Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.10759/) (2023)
- [The Kolmogorov-Arnold representation theorem revisited](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.15884/) (2020)
- [Classic GNNs are Strong Baselines: Reassessing GNNs for Node Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.08993/) (2024)
- [Graph Attention Multi-Layer Perceptron](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.04355/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [Grables: When Graph Structure Helps Tabular Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.03945/) (2026)
- [Multi-Agent Systems are Mixtures of Experts: Who Becomes an Influencer?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.25929/) (2026)
- [Unifying Graph Neural Networks Through a Common Layer Equation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.16097/) (2026)
- [PATTERN Can Be Solved from Memory: Generator-Aware Baselines for Synthetic Node Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.15020/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Graph neural networks (GNNs) are widely believed to excel at node representation learning through trainable neighborhood aggregations. We challenge this view by introducing Fixed Aggregation Features (FAFs), a training-free approach that transforms graph learning tasks into tabular problems. This simple shift enables the use of well-established tabular methods, offering strong interpretability and the flexibility to deploy diverse classifiers. Across 14 benchmarks, well-tuned multilayer perceptrons trained on FAFs rival or outperform state-of-the-art GNNs and graph transformers on 12 tasks -- often using only mean aggregation. The only exceptions are the Roman Empire and Minesweeper datasets, which typically require unusually deep GNNs. To explain the theoretical possibility of non-trainable aggregations, we connect our findings to Kolmogorov-Arnold representations and discuss when mean aggregation can be sufficient. In conclusion, our results call for (i) richer benchmarks benefiting from learning diverse neighborhood aggregations, (ii) strong tabular baselines as standard, and (iii) employing and advancing tabular models for graph data to gain new insights into related tasks.