---
url: /docs/replacements/shortid.md
description: >-
  Modern, secure alternatives to the shortid package for generating URL‑friendly
  unique IDs
---

# Replacements for `shortid`

## `nanoid`

[`nanoid`](https://github.com/ai/nanoid) is a tiny, secure, URL‑friendly, unique string ID generator. It’s also faster than [`shortid`](https://github.com/dylang/shortid).

:::info Good to know before migration

* `shortid.isValid(id)`: there’s no direct equivalent. Validate with a regex that matches your chosen alphabet and length, e.g. `/^[A-Za-z0-9_-]{21}$/`.

* `shortid.seed()`/`shortid.worker()`: not needed and not provided by `nanoid` (it uses a secure random source). Avoid seeded/deterministic IDs for security.

:::

### Basic migration

```ts
import shortid from 'shortid' // [!code --]
import { nanoid } from 'nanoid' // [!code ++]

const id = shortid.generate() // [!code --]
const id = nanoid() // [!code ++] => "V1StGXR8_Z5jdHi6B-myT"
```

### Control length

```ts
// shortid produced ~7-14 chars; with nanoid you pick the size explicitly:
nanoid(10) // e.g., "NG3oYbq9qE"
```

### Custom alphabet (replacement for `shortid.characters`)

```ts
shortid.characters('0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ$@') // [!code --]
import { customAlphabet } from 'nanoid' // [!code ++]

const alphabet = '0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ$@' // [!code ++]
const makeId = customAlphabet(alphabet, 12) // [!code ++]
const id = makeId() // [!code ++]
```