Why is Binary Heap Preferred over BST for Priority Queue? Last Updated : 23 Aug, 2024 Comments Improve Suggest changes Like Article Like Report A typical Priority Queue requires following operations to be efficient.Get Top Priority Element (Get minimum or maximum)Insert an elementRemove top priority elementDecrease KeyA Binary Heap supports above operations with following time complexities:O(1)O(Logn)O(Logn)O(Logn) A Self Balancing Binary Search Tree like AVL Tree, Red-Black Tree, etc can also support above operations with same time complexities.Finding minimum and maximum are not naturally O(1), but can be easily implemented in O(1) by keeping an extra pointer to minimum or maximum and updating the pointer with insertion and deletion if required. With deletion we can update by finding inorder predecessor or successor.Inserting an element is naturally O(Logn)Removing maximum or minimum are also O(Logn) Decrease key can be done in O(Logn) by doing a deletion followed by insertion. See this for details.So why is Binary Heap Preferred for Priority Queue?Since Binary Heap is implemented using arrays, there is always better locality of reference and operations are more cache friendly.Although operations are of same time complexity, constants in Binary Search Tree are higher.We can build a Binary Heap in O(n) time. Self Balancing BSTs require O(nLogn) time to construct.Binary Heap doesn't require extra space for pointers.Binary Heap is easier to implement.There are variations of Binary Heap like Fibonacci Heap that can support insert and decrease-key in Θ(1) timeIs Binary Heap always better? Although Binary Heap is for Priority Queue, BSTs have their own advantages and the list of advantages is in-fact bigger compared to binary heap.Searching an element in self-balancing BST is O(Logn) which is O(n) in Binary Heap.We can print all elements of BST in sorted order in O(n) time, but Binary Heap requires O(nLogn) time.Floor and ceil can be found in O(Logn) time.K'th largest/smallest element be found in O(Logn) time by augmenting tree with an additional field. Comment More infoAdvertise with us Next Article Why is Binary Heap Preferred over BST for Priority Queue? V Vivek Gupta Improve Article Tags : Heap DSA Self-Balancing-BST priority-queue Practice Tags : Heappriority-queue Similar Reads Priority Queue using Binary Heap What is a Priority Queue ?Priority Queue is an extension of the queue with the following properties: Every item has a priority associated with it.An element with high priority is dequeued before an element with low priority.If two elements have the same priority, they are served according to their o 15+ min read Why Quick Sort preferred for Arrays and Merge Sort for Linked Lists? Why is Quick Sort preferred for arrays? Below are recursive and iterative implementations of Quick Sort and Merge Sort for arrays. Recursive Quick Sort for array. Iterative Quick Sort for arrays. Recursive Merge Sort for arrays Iterative Merge Sort for arrays Quick Sort in its general form is an in- 5 min read How to implement Priority Queue - using Heap or Array? 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When we add an item, it is inserted in a position based on its priority.Elements with higher priority are typically retrieved or removed before elements with lower prior 6 min read Implement the insert and delete functions on Priority queue without Array A priority Queue is a type of queue in which every element is associated with a priority and is served according to its priority. We will use two popular data structures for implementing priority queues without arrays - Fibonacci HeapBinomial HeapFibonacci Heap:Fibonacci heap is a heap data structur 15+ min read Difference between Circular Queue and Priority Queue Queues are fundamental data structures that are used to store and manage a collection of elements. While both circular queues and priority queues are types of queues, they have distinct characteristics and applications. This article will explore the key differences between circular queues and priori 4 min read Why can't a Priority Queue wrap around like an ordinary Queue? Priority Queue: A priority queue is a special type of queue in which each element is assigned a priority value. And elements are served based on their priority. This means that elements with higher priority are served first. However, if elements with the same priority occur, they will be served in t 3 min read Like