Why Should We Choose SEQUENCE Over IDENTITY

 As we know that Identity and Sequence both are used to generated the sequence number so generally, we are using the Identity instead of sequence. For the small table we are not seeing anything using both in terms of performance also. But our question remains same that when we should we need to use the Sequence.

Sequence is reusable across multiple tables, identity is not. In enterprise systems like billing, invoice, or order management, we often need the same number series for multiple tables like OrderMaster, OrderAudit, and History tables. Sequence makes this super easy.

Sequence can generate numbers before insert. This is extremely important in banking and financial applications mainly when we are reading data from Kafka consumer where the transaction number must be generated first and then processed.

Sequence supports custom start value, increment, min, max, cache and even cycling. Identity is very limited in comparison. Sequence performs better in high concurrency environments because of caching. So, when millions of rows are getting inserted, sequence is faster and more reliable. Sequence is not tied to a table. we can use it inside Stored Procedures, Functions, Default Constraints, and even across databases.

Finally, we can say that we can use IDENTITY for a simple application. But for enterprise applications, financial systems, and high-performance workloads always we choose SEQUENCE.