10.5.7. Pagination

If you need to specify bounds upon your result set, that is, the maximum number of rows you want to retrieve and/or the first row you want to retrieve, you can use methods of the Query interface:

Query q = sess.createQuery("from DomesticCat cat");
q.setFirstResult(20);
q.setMaxResults(10);
List cats = q.list();

Hibernate knows how to translate this limit query into the native SQL of your DBMS.