A computer-implemented method, apparatus and article of manufacture for optimizing a database query. A query execution plan is generated for the database query, which may be stored in an in-line query capture database. Execution of the query execution plan may be monitored in order to generate performance information, which also may be stored in the in-line query capture database. The data stored in in-line query capture database may be used during the initial generation of query execution plans, as well as for the re-optimization of a query execution plan, during the execution of the query execution plan.