SQL Server Change Tracking vs CDC – Understanding the Differences

Written By Andrew Jackson

Approved By Anuraag Singh

Modified On January 6th, 2026

Reading Time 7 Min Read

In the SQL Server environment, it often becomes important for the users to track what changes have been made, as manipulating the data isn’t that difficult. Certainly, there are not many ways to find these changes, but there is tough competition between SQL Server change tracking vs CDC for tracing the manipulated data. With the help of this guide, we will learn all about these methods and how they will help the users find who changed what in SQL Server database.

What is SQL Server Change Tracking? Overview

As we can understand by the name, SQL Server Change Tracking is designed to trace any changes made in the SQL Server database. This method helps users determine if there has been a change in the database. However, this method doesn’t provide much information about what changes were made since the last time, much more clearly.

To use this method, it becomes important for the users to enable Change Tracking in SQL Server. With the feature enabled, internal metadata is maintained, storing the row-level changes in the SQL Server. Most of the applications linked to SQL Server database store the last updated version. This helps SQL Server change tracking be helpful in cases of database synchronization to maintain performance.

The Change Tracking method helps users know the last changes made in the database. Even if this method captures the changes made, it has some limitations as well. One of the most common setbacks to this method is that no matter how many times the row has been updated or manipulated during a synchronization, SQL Server will report them as a single change only. Also, in case the user or database administrator adds a row in the database and deletes it before the next synchronization, it won’t be reported as a change in SQL Server. Now moving on to the next part, let’s understand the second part for SQL Server change tracking vs CDC, that is CDC.

What is Change Data Capture in SQL Server? Explained

Now its time to understand the second method, that is Change Data Capture in SQL Server. Even though it is used for the same purpose, CDC uses an entirely different approach to tracking the changes made in SQL Server. CDC mainly records all the changes made in a row in the SQL Server database. Not just that, users can also benefit from this method as it creates a table to store every change made, along with the older data. With the help of Change Data Capture in SQL Server, users and database administrators can understand clearly which changes were made in the database. This feature makes it more effective for users to find the answer to what changes were made in the database.

After learning a little about both methods, let’s now take a look at the clear and concise difference between the two methods to make it easier for the users to understand.

Got a Damaged Transaction Log File? Here’s the Fix

When we talk about the change data capture method to record event changes in the database, the first thing we must know is that it relies heavily on the database. In case the database log file somehow gets damaged or corrupted due to a power crash or abrupt shutdown, it can lead the database administrators to lose the tracked data, and also end up losing the recorded operations in the SQL Server database. To resolve issues like this one, the most preferable solution is to use a dedicated SQL Log Analyzer Tool, a utility that will help fix the corruption easily. And while we are talking about recording changes, this tool is efficient to load all the data of the transaction log in the database, along with who made what changes in the SQL Server Database.

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SQL Server Change Tracking vs CDC – Which is Better?

To understand the differences better, we will learn the different aspects of these methods and understand them more clearly. Here are some of the crucial distinctions between the two:

Working Process & What They Record

The SQL Server change tracking uses stored metadata to trace changes made in the SQL Server database. This change tracking method only records the final changes in the database. This is much lighter compared to the CDC, as it doesn’t store all the information of the change done in the database. On the other hand, the Change Data Capture records changes by directly reading the Transaction log in SQL Server.

With the SQL Server change tracking, it mainly works at the row level and stores the primary key values, the DML functions, and the change version. However, the Change Data Capture works by strong the following data:

The old and new values after changes were made.
The metadata of the operations.
And the Log Sequence Number for Transactions

By storing this data, CDC becomes a much more effective method to track DML changes in SQL Server. This proves that Change Data Capture stores complete database history records, whereas Change tracking only detects the changes.

How They Track Changes & Frequency to Record Changes in SQL Server

The Change Tracking in SQL Server uses the version numbers to trace any changes made in the database. The applications associated with SQL Server request these version numbers to get a record of data changes since any previous point. As for Change Data Capture, it uses Log Sequence Number. The LSNs are unique identifiers in transaction logs to identify different operations. CDC offers more precise results compared to Change Tracking in SQL Server.
Change tracking SQL Server isn’t very dependent on the transaction logs. Hence, the transaction log isn’t much affected during this process of recording changes in the database. Whereas the Change Data Capture in SQL Server relies heavily on transaction logs and can affect the performance and backup processes of log files in the database.
The SQL Server change tracking mainly records the net changes in the database. Furthermore, this method considers all the changes made during a synchronization as a single change. Now, with the CDC, it stores all the events of changes made in the database. CDC records and stores all the operations in the database individually.

Choosing the Right Option to Track DML Changes in SQL Server

We have now understood how both of these methods work. It’s now time to learn the situations where we can consider these methods as a safer approach. We will first take a look at the situations where choosing SQL Server Change Tracking is a good idea.

In case you are looking for a method just to detect the data change, this method can help.
To find out only the recent change of the data in the database.
When you are looking for a method that has minimal impact on the performance.
You only require the latest data and not the historical data in the SQL Server database.

After understanding the cases for Change Tracking, let’s now understand where Change Data Capture is helpful in SQL Server.

The database administrator needs to know the exact changes made in the SQL Server database.
When the user needs both the values, i.e., the data before change and the data after change.
To maintain the event change history in SQL Server.
For audits and compliance regulations.

These are a few cases where the CDC is helpful for the users rather than using the change tracking in the database.

Conclusion

With the help of this technical write-up, we have learned the SQL Server Change Tracking vs CDC differences. This guide will help you understand why we use these methods and the common use cases for them. By understanding these differences, we can easily learn which method is efficient in a certain scenario.