ULID

ULID (Universally Unique Lexicographically Sortable Identifier) is a 128-bit ID standard: it combines a 48-bit timestamp with 80 bits of cryptographically secure randomness for global uniqueness and temporal sorting.

ULID is the modern identifier solution, engineered to supersede the limitations of traditional UUIDs. It’s a 128-bit value, structured with a 48-bit millisecond Unix timestamp prefix and an 80-bit random component to guarantee both lexicographical sortability and global uniqueness. This time-based prefix ensures efficient database indexing (B-tree locality), directly addressing the fragmentation issues of UUID v4. Canonically encoded as a compact 26-character string using Crockford's Base32 (URL-safe, case-insensitive), ULID offers a massive generation capacity: 1.21e+24 unique identifiers per millisecond. This makes it the superior choice for high-throughput, distributed systems that require both order and scale.

https://github.com/ulid/spec