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The nanoid npm package is a small, secure, URL-friendly, unique string ID generator for JavaScript applications. It is designed to be fast and efficient, producing random or custom ID strings suitable for a variety of applications, including database keys, session identifiers, and more.
Simple ID Generation
Generate a unique, URL-friendly ID. The default ID length is 21 characters, which provides a good balance of speed and uniqueness.
const { nanoid } = require('nanoid');
console.log(nanoid()); // Example output: 'V1StGXR8_Z5jdHi6B-myT'
Custom Length ID Generation
Generate a unique ID with a custom length. This allows for shorter or longer IDs depending on the level of uniqueness required.
const { nanoid } = require('nanoid');
console.log(nanoid(10)); // Example output: 'IRFa-VaY2b'
Non-secure ID Generation
Generate a non-secure ID with a custom alphabet and length. This is useful for cases where unique IDs are needed without the cryptographic strength.
const { customAlphabet } = require('nanoid');
const nanoid = customAlphabet('1234567890abcdef', 10);
console.log(nanoid()); // Example output: '4f90d13a42'
Custom Alphabet ID Generation
Generate a unique ID using a custom alphabet. This is useful when you need to avoid certain characters or use a specific set of characters for IDs.
const { customAlphabet } = require('nanoid');
const alphabet = '0123456789ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz';
const nanoid = customAlphabet(alphabet, 10);
console.log(nanoid()); // Example output: '4f90d13a42'
The uuid package can generate RFC-compliant UUIDs. It offers different versions of UUIDs, such as v1 (timestamp-based), v4 (random), and others. Compared to nanoid, uuid provides more standardized and structured IDs, but they are not as compact as nanoid's IDs.
Shortid is another package for generating short non-sequential url-friendly unique ids. However, it is no longer recommended for use as it has been deprecated in favor of nanoid, which is more secure and maintains a smaller size.
Uniqid is a package that generates unique IDs based on the current time and an optional prefix or suffix. It is less feature-rich compared to nanoid and does not provide the same level of customization or security.
A tiny, secure, URL-friendly, unique string ID generator for JavaScript.
Safe. It uses cryptographically strong random APIs and tests distribution of symbols.
Small. 146 bytes (minified and gzipped). No dependencies. It uses Size Limit to control size.
Compact. It uses a larger alphabet than UUID (A-Za-z0-9_~
).
As result it could reduce ID size from 36 to 21 symbols.
var nanoid = require('nanoid')
model.id = nanoid() //=> "V1StGXR8_Z5jdHi6B~myT"
The generator supports Node.js and all browsers starting from IE 11.
See a good article about random generators theory: Secure random values (in Node.js)
Instead of using the unsafe Math.random()
, Nano ID uses the crypto
module
in Node.js and the Web Crypto API in browsers. This modules use unpredictable
hardware random generator.
random % alphabet
is a popular mistake to make when coding an ID generator.
The spread will not be even; there will be a lower chance for some symbols
to appear compared to others—so it will reduce the number of tries
when brute-forcing.
Nano ID uses a better algorithm and is tested for uniformity:
Nano ID is quite comparable to UUID v4 (random-based). It has a similar number of random bits in the ID (126 in Nano ID and 122 in UUID), so it has a similar collision probability:
For there to be a one in a billion chance of duplication, 103 trillion version 4 IDs must be generated.
There are two main differences between Nano ID and UUID v4:
uuid/v4
package:
146 bytes instead of 435.$ ./benchmark
nanoid 332,991 ops/sec
nanoid/generate 326,636 ops/sec
uuid/v4 315,344 ops/sec
shortid 33,717 ops/sec
The main module uses URL-friendly symbols (A-Za-z0-9_~
) and returns an ID
with 21 characters (to have a collision probability similar to UUID v4).
var nanoid = require('nanoid')
model.id = nanoid() //=> "Uakgb_J5m9g~0JDMbcJqLJ"
Symbols -,.()
are not encoded in the URL. If used at the end of a link
they could be identified as a punctuation symbol.
If you want to reduce ID length (and increase collisions probability), you can pass the length as an argument:
nanoid(10) //=> "IRFa~VaY2b"
Don’t forget to check safety of your ID length in our ID collision probability calculator.
If you want to change the ID's alphabet or length
you can use the low-level generate
module.
var generate = require('nanoid/generate')
model.id = generate('1234567890abcdef', 10) //=> "4f90d13a42"
Check safety of your custom alphabet and ID length in our ID collision probability calculator.
Alphabet must contain 256 symbols or less. Otherwise, the generator will not be secure.
You can find popular alphabets in nanoid-dictionary
.
You can replace the default safe random generator using the format
module.
For instance, to use a seed-based generator.
var format = require('nanoid/format')
function random (size) {
var result = []
for (var i = 0; i < size; i++) result.push(randomByte())
return result
}
format(random, "abcdef", 10) //=> "fbaefaadeb"
random
callback must accept the array size and return an array
with random numbers.
If you want to use the same URL-friendly symbols with format
,
you can get the default alphabet from the url
module:
var url = require('nanoid/url')
format(random, url, 10) //=> "93ce_Ltuub"
nanoid-dictionary
with popular alphabets to use with nanoid/generate
.nanoid-cli
to generate ID from CLI.Also, CLI tool is available to generate IDs from command line.
1.0.7
FAQs
A tiny (116 bytes), secure URL-friendly unique string ID generator
The npm package nanoid receives a total of 31,924,683 weekly downloads. As such, nanoid popularity was classified as popular.
We found that nanoid demonstrated a healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released less than a year ago. It has 1 open source maintainer collaborating on the project.
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