This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Hamada Habib
Works seamlessly with MySQL, MariaDB, and PostgreSQL — no MongoDB required.
Every Laravel developer has been there — you start a new project, define your migrations, and by default, your models use auto-incrementing IDs. It works fine... until your app grows, you need distributed systems, API integrations, or microservices. Suddenly, those integer IDs start to look like a limitation.
That’s where Laravel ObjectId comes in — a drop-in, ultra-fast, globally unique identifier system inspired by MongoDB’s ObjectIds, designed for MySQL, MariaDB, and PostgreSQL — no MongoDB required.
💡 Why ObjectId?
Unlike UUIDs or ULIDs, ObjectIds are compact 12-byte identifiers that encode timestamp, randomness, and a counter — making them sortable, lightweight, and unique across systems.
In numeric terms, they’re up to 3× faster to generate and smaller in size, which directly improves database performance and indexing.
✅ Works natively with MySQL, MariaDB, and PostgreSQL
🚫 No MongoDB driver or extension required
🧬 How ObjectId Works Internally
ObjectIds are 12-byte (96-bit) identifiers consisting of four key parts:
| Segment | Size | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Timestamp | 4 bytes | UNIX epoch seconds — makes IDs sortable by creation time |
| Machine Identifier | 5 bytes | Randomly generated, unique per host |
| Process ID | 2 bytes | Uniquely identifies the generating process |
| Counter | 3 bytes | Incrementing counter initialized randomly per process |
➡️ Total = 4 + 5 + 2 + 3 = 12 bytes = 24 hex characters
This design ensures uniqueness without any central generator and preserves chronological order, making it ideal for distributed systems.
For more details, check:
- MongoDB’s ObjectId Reference
- Percona’s Deep Dive into ObjectIds
- Stack Overflow breakdown of ObjectId structure
🧩 The Ecosystem
The Laravel package is built on top of our core PHP library:
- 🔹
wooserv/php-objectid: a pure PHP implementation of ObjectIds. - 🔹
wooserv/laravel-objectid: Laravel integration with automatic model ID assignment and migration macros.
Both packages are open-source under the MIT license, created by WooServ Labs.
⚡ Installation
composer require wooserv/laravel-objectid
🧱 Usage
Model Example
use WooServ\LaravelObjectId\Concerns\HasObjectIds;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
class Post extends Model
{
use HasObjectIds;
}
Migration Example
Schema::create('posts', function (Blueprint $table) {
$table->objectId(); // Creates a 24-char string primary key
$table->string('title');
$table->timestamps();
});
Generate IDs Anywhere
$id = objectid(); // e.g. 6730b6a0d8a28f890b7c9f40
🔬 Benchmark Results
Laravel ObjectId Performance (10,000 iterations)
----------------------------------------------------------
ObjectId : 0.412 µs per ID
objectid() helper : 0.417 µs per ID
UUID : 1.283 µs per ID
ULID : 1.147 µs per ID
----------------------------------------------------------
Fastest: ObjectId 🚀
Database Insert Benchmark (1,000 inserts)
----------------------------------------------------------
ObjectId : 14.78 ms total (0.015 ms/insert)
UUID : 15.48 ms total (0.015 ms/insert)
ULID : 15.17 ms total (0.015 ms/insert)
----------------------------------------------------------
⚔️ ObjectId vs UUID vs ULID
| Feature | ObjectId | UUID | ULID |
|---|---|---|---|
| Length | 24 chars | 36 chars | 26 chars |
| Bytes | 12 | 16 | 16 |
| Sortable | ✅ (timestamp prefix) | ❌ | ✅ |
| Randomness | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Readability | 🟢 Compact | 🔴 Long | 🟢 Fair |
| Speed | 🚀 Fastest | 🐢 Slowest | ⚡ Medium |
| Works with MySQL/MariaDB/PostgreSQL | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Requires MongoDB | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
Verdict: ObjectId is the best balance between compactness, performance, and chronological order — and it’s fully compatible with standard SQL databases.
🧠 Why Developers Love It
- ✅ Automatic assignment — no need to manually generate IDs.
- ⚙️ Migration macro
$table->objectId()— clean and intuitive. - 🧩 Framework-agnostic core — works outside Laravel too.
- 📦 Compact storage — saves DB space compared to UUID.
- 🕒 Sortable by creation time — built-in timestamp encoding.
- 🧰 Database-compatible — works with MySQL, MariaDB, and PostgreSQL seamlessly.
🌍 Open Source Philosophy
Both packages are released under the MIT License and maintained by WooServ Labs, a collective of developers building open, high-performance PHP tooling for modern web apps.
We believe that open-source should be:
- Simple to install.
- Fun to use.
- Fast by default.
If you share that philosophy — star the repo, contribute, or just spread the word 💫
📎 Resources
- 🔗 Laravel ObjectId on GitHub
- 🔗 PHP ObjectId on GitHub
- 📦 Packagist: wooserv/laravel-objectid
- 📦 Packagist: wooserv/php-objectid
- 📘 MongoDB ObjectId Reference
⭐ If you like it — give it a Star on GitHub and share it with your fellow Laravel devs!
This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Hamada Habib
Hamada Habib | Sciencx (2025-11-09T08:41:16+00:00) 🚀 Introducing Laravel ObjectId — The Fastest MongoDB-Style Identifier for Laravel Models. Retrieved from https://www.scien.cx/2025/11/09/%f0%9f%9a%80-introducing-laravel-objectid-the-fastest-mongodb-style-identifier-for-laravel-models/
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