Learnings about the problems of using UUID as the primary key

The Problem with Using a UUID Primary Key in MySQL

Key takeaways

a. Performance Issues: UUIDs can negatively impact database performance due to their size and randomness, which can lead to increased index fragmentation and slower query performance compared to integer-based keys.

b. Storage Overhead: UUIDs require more storage space (16 bytes) than typical integer primary keys (4 or 8 bytes), which can lead to larger index sizes and increased disk usage, especially in large datasets.

c. Complexity in Data Management: Using UUIDs complicates data management tasks, such as sorting and generating sequential records, making it harder to perform operations that benefit from ordered keys.

Alternates

a. Binary variant: Store UUIDs in a binary format (BINARY(16)) instead of as strings (CHAR(36)).

b. Ordered UUID: Use time-based UUIDs such as version 6 or 7.

c. Built-in SQL UUID: MySQL supports generating UUIDs directly within SQL.

d. Alternate UUID: Snowflake ID, ULID, NanoID

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