Migration from python-slugify

slugany is designed as a drop-in replacement for python-slugify with a simpler, zero-dependency architecture.

Key Differences

Aspect	python-slugify	slugany
Dependencies	text-unidecode (GPL)	Zero
API	Positional + keyword	Keyword-only
Multi-language	Limited	Built-in tables (es, pt, de, fr, it)
Caching	No	lru_cache built-in
Smart punctuation	No	Built-in (smart quotes, dashes, zero-width)
Emoji support	No	strip, text, keep modes
CSS-safe	No	Built-in css_safe option
Style presets	No	kebab, snake, camel, pascal, dot, train, filename, url
Confusables	Limited	Cyrillic + Greek homoglyph deconfusion
License	GPL	MIT

Basic Migration

# python-slugify
from slugify import slugify
slugify("Hello World")

# slugany
from slugany import slugify
slugify("Hello World")

Parameter Mapping

python-slugify	slugany	Notes
separator	separator	Same
lowercase	lowercase	Same
max_length	max_length	Same
word_boundary	word_boundary	Same
stopwords	stopwords	Same
replacements	replacements	Same
allow_unicode	allow_unicode	Same
regex_pattern	—	Not supported; use replacements instead
—	style	New: case style presets
—	lang	New: language transliteration
—	fallback	New: fallback for empty slugs
—	emoji_mode	New: emoji handling
—	css_safe	New: CSS-safe prefix
—	html_entities	New: HTML entity decoding
—	smart_punctuation	New: smart punctuation normalization

Intentional Differences

Keyword-only arguments

slugany uses keyword-only arguments. This is by design to improve readability and prevent positional argument errors:

# python-slugify allows positional:
slugify("Hello World", "_")

# slugany requires keyword:
slugify("Hello World", separator="_")

Smart punctuation normalization

slugany normalizes smart quotes, dashes, and zero-width characters by default. Disable with smart_punctuation=False:

# python-slugify: smart quotes preserved as-is
# slugany: smart quotes normalized to ASCII
slugify("Bob's café")  # -> "bob-s-cafe"

Zero dependencies

slugany has zero runtime dependencies. No text-unidecode, no unidecode, no regex libraries. All transliteration tables are built-in.

Slugifier class

slugany introduces Slugifier, a reusable slugifier bound to a fixed configuration:

from slugany import Slugifier

s = Slugifier.style("camel", max_length=20)
s("Hello World")       # -> "helloWorld"
s("Another Example")   # -> "anotherExample"

deconfuse() utility

slugany exposes deconfuse() as a standalone utility for replacing confusable Unicode characters:

from slugany import deconfuse
deconfuse("саfe")  # -> "cafe" (Cyrillic s -> Latin c)
deconfuse("αβγ")   # -> "abg" (Greek -> Latin)