Question

does explain analyze run the query

Answer 1

the difference between explain & explain analyze is that the former generates the query plan by estimating the cost, while the latter actually executes the query.

Thus, explain analyze will give you more accurate query plan / cost.

However, you don't want to "explain analyze" any data modification queries, unless you intend to actually modify the database. These would be create table, update, insert, drop, delete & truncate table queries

Likewise for very costly queries, you may want to avoid putting the extra burden on the server by running an explain analyze.

A good rule to follow is to try just explain first. examine the output, and if the cost estimates or query plans differ significantly from what you expect, run explain analyze making sure that