I recently came across something that got me wondering about the maintenance status of the popular Google UUID package for Go. There’s a pull request for UUIDv8 support that has been open for more than half a year without any activity from maintainers. No code reviews, no feedback, and barely any discussion despite several developers asking about it.
This seems odd considering how widely adopted this UUID library is in the Go ecosystem. I expected more active maintenance for such a core package. Has anyone else noticed this pattern? Are there alternative UUID libraries you would recommend, particularly if you need UUIDv8 functionality? I’m curious about what the community is doing in response to this apparent lack of maintenance.
I’ve been tracking this issue for a while now and you’re absolutely right about the maintenance concerns. The google/uuid package hasn’t seen significant updates recently, which is problematic given its widespread usage. I ended up switching to the gofrs/uuid library about six months ago when I needed more reliable maintenance and newer UUID features. It’s actively maintained, has good performance characteristics, and includes support for newer UUID versions. The migration was straightforward since the API is quite similar. Another option worth considering is the satori/go.uuid fork, though it’s less active than gofrs. For production systems, I’d definitely recommend moving away from google/uuid until the maintenance situation improves, especially if you need any features beyond basic v4 generation.
yeah ive noticed this too, its pretty frustrating tbh. been using google/uuid for years but the radio silence from maintainers is concerning. maybe they’re just busy with other google projects? anyway i’ve been experimenting with GitHub - oklog/ulid: Universally Unique Lexicographically Sortable Identifier (ULID) in Go lately - not exactly uuid but works great for most use cases where you need unique identifiers.