Рекурсивный CTE для иерархии: WITH RECURSIVE tree AS ( SELECT id, name, parent_id, 0 AS depth FROM categories WHERE parent_id IS NULL UNION ALL SELECT c.id, c.name, c.parent_id, t.depth + 1 FROM categories c JOIN tree t ON c.parent_id = t.id ) SELECT * FROM tree ORDER BY depth, name; Программист: это чище чем 10 JOIN!