The subject matter disclosed herein relates to out of memory error handling in a database system. A database operation can be received by an in-memory database. The database operation can be for a database object stored in a database table that can be represented as a plurality of pages that can be persisted in a page chain. The in-memory database can reserve out of memory space sufficient to load a predetermined number of pages in the page chain into memory. The in-memory database can iteratively process each page in the page chain until completion of the database operation. The iterative process can include loading the page from persistence into memory of the in-memory database, performing at least a portion of the database operation using the loaded page, and unloading the page from the memory of the in-memory database. Related apparatus, systems, techniques, and articles are also described.