snowflake-id-toolkit 0.2.0

Snowflake ID Toolkit - Generate distributed unique IDs.

snowflake-id-toolkit

A Python toolkit for generating snowflake-like unique IDs.

Supported Implementations

• Twitter Snowflake - 64-bit IDs with ~69 years of timestamps, 1024 nodes, 4096 IDs per millisecond per node
• Instagram Snowflake - 64-bit IDs with ~69 years of timestamps, 8192 shards, 1024 IDs per millisecond per shard
• Sony Sonyflake (coming soon)

Installation

pip install snowflake-id-toolkit

Usage

from snowflake_id_toolkit.twitter import TwitterSnowflakeIDGenerator

generator = TwitterSnowflakeIDGenerator(
    node_id=0,
    epoch=1288834974657  # Twitter's default epoch
)
snowflake_id = generator.generate_next_id()

Comparison with Other ID Strategies

Feature	Snowflake	UUIDv4	UUIDv7	Auto-increment
Size	64 bits	128 bits	128 bits	32-64 bits
Sortable by time	✅	❌	✅	✅
Distributed generation	✅	✅	✅	❌
No coordination needed	⚠️	✅	✅	❌
DB Index-friendly	✅	❌	⚠️	✅
Predictability	Medium	None	Low	High
Throughput	4,096,000/sec/node	Unlimited	Unlimited	DB-limited
Relative speed	~5.2x	~1.1x	1x (baseline)	N/A (DB-bound)

When to Use

• Snowflake: High-throughput distributed systems needing compact, sortable IDs
• UUIDv4: When unpredictability matters, size doesn't, and no sorting needed
• UUIDv7: Modern default choice when simplicity is key factor and 128 bits is acceptable
• Auto-increment: Single-database apps where simplicity wins

License

The snowflake-id-toolkit is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for more information.