---
title: "UUIDs, ULIDs and Sqids: A Practical Deep Dive"
url: https://daily.dev/posts/uuids-ulids-and-sqids-a-practical-deep-dive-79nwblyzu
source_url: https://wendelladriel.com/blog/uuids-ulids-and-sqids-a-practical-deep-dive
type: article
source: "W endell Adriel"
author: "Wendell Adriel"
published: 2026-07-06T11:41:17.714Z
updated: 2026-07-10T08:17:31.252Z
tags: ["database", "php"]
reading_time: 16
upvotes: 16
comments: 0
language: en
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# UUIDs, ULIDs and Sqids: A Practical Deep Dive

**[W endell Adriel](https://daily.dev/sources/wendelladriel)** · [@wendell_adriel](https://daily.dev/wendell_adriel) · 16 min read · 16 upvotes · 0 comments

## Summary

A thorough comparison of UUIDs (v4 and v7), ULIDs, and Sqids covering their generation models, sorting behavior, database storage trade-offs, and security implications. UUIDv4 offers opaque distributed IDs, UUIDv7 adds time-ordering while keeping UUID semantics, ULIDs provide compact lexicographically sortable 128-bit IDs, and Sqids generate reversible short public IDs from existing integers. The post includes PHP code examples using ramsey/uuid, robinvdvleuten/ulid, and the official Sqids package, plus a practical decision flow, database storage guidance (CHAR vs BINARY), and common mistakes like treating Sqids as encryption or relying on hard-to-guess IDs instead of proper authorization.

## Full article

daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: <https://wendelladriel.com/blog/uuids-ulids-and-sqids-a-practical-deep-dive>

## Similar posts on daily.dev

- [UUID v7 vs. ULID: Which Sortable ID Should You Choose?](https://daily.dev/posts/uuid-v7-vs-ulid-which-sortable-id-should-you-choose--xlgz26hfk) · Ruby Flow · 0 upvotes · 0 comments
- [UUID v4 vs v7, and what's inside a UUID](https://daily.dev/posts/uuid-v4-vs-v7-and-what-s-inside-a-uuid-buf3wbyzk) · Flavio Copes · 1 upvotes · 0 comments
- [Universally Unique Lexicographically Sortable Identifiers \(ULIDs\)](https://daily.dev/posts/universally-unique-lexicographically-sortable-identifiers-ulids--xfthi2f2b) · Marius Bancila · 0 upvotes · 0 comments
- [Beyond UUIDv4: The Case for Cosmologically Unique IDs in Distributed Systems](https://daily.dev/posts/beyond-uuidv4-the-case-for-cosmologically-unique-ids-in-distributed-systems-oorpnxmiz) · SitePoint · 0 upvotes · 0 comments

---

Tags: [#database](https://daily.dev/tags/database), [#php](https://daily.dev/tags/php)

[View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/uuids-ulids-and-sqids-a-practical-deep-dive-79nwblyzu)
