Where to store slugs

📰 Dev.to · david duymelinck

Learn where to store slugs in your application and why it matters for routing and performance

intermediate Published 30 Apr 2026
Action Steps
  1. Determine the routing requirements of your application to decide where to store slugs
  2. Consider using a separate table or collection for slugs instead of storing them as a field in a content table
  3. Evaluate the trade-offs between storing slugs in a database versus in the routing configuration
  4. Use environment-specific configuration to manage dynamic URLs and slugs
  5. Optimize slug storage and routing for performance by minimizing caching refreshes
Who Needs to Know This

Backend developers and software engineers can benefit from understanding how to store slugs effectively to improve application routing and performance

Key Insight

💡 Storing slugs as a separate entity can improve routing flexibility and performance

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🚀 Improve your app's routing and performance by storing slugs effectively! 📈

Key Takeaways

Learn where to store slugs in your application and why it matters for routing and performance

Full Article

Title: Where to store slugs

URL Source: https://dev.to/xwero/where-to-store-slugs-26lp

Published Time: 2026-04-30T18:38:14Z

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Posted on Apr 30

# Where to store slugs

[#architecture](https://dev.to/t/architecture)

A few days ago I saw a post about a slug library. And they used specific ORM models, post and author, to store the slugs.

A slug is a part of the routing. And while they can be stored in a database, the best location is not as a field of a content table.

## [](https://dev.to/xwero/where-to-store-slugs-26lp#the-basics) The basics

As I mentioned a slug is a part of the routing. In the case of a post that can be where-to-store-slugs. This can be the full path, /where-to-store-slugs, but it also can be a part of the path, /posts/where-to-store-slugs.

When your website is multilingual there can be aliases for the slug.

For the people that go old school it can a part of the query string, ?title=where-to-store-slugs.

On a mostly static website you can get away with putting the slugs in the routing configuration.

When the urls are more dynamic, I'm thinking about user created pages, the routing configuration can still be an option when you include an environment specific configuration. The problem there is that the routing configuration is cached most of the time to make the routing as fast as possible. So every slug change could create a refresh
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