According to some embodiments, a system to manage a query plan cache for a Database Management System (“DBMS”) includes a DBMS query plan cache data store. The DBMS query plan cache data store may contain, for example, electronic records representing a plurality of query plans each associated with a set of instructions created in response to a query previously submitted by a user. A DBMS query plan cache management platform may then calculate a utility score for each query plan in the DBMS query plan cache data store. At least one query plan may be evicted from the DBMS query plan cache data store based on the calculated utility score, wherein the evicting is not based on a size of the DBMS query plan cache.