# Biff

11 Hacker News commenters recommended Biff and 3 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 4 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Recommended for thorough, example-rich command line datetime handling that uses the system timezone database. Critics note its specialised language and that LLMs can now do similar work.

## Why people recommend it

- Clear examples show command line possibilities (2 comments): "This is pretty neat. My proficiency with the command line is woefully underdeveloped and seeing examples like this help me see the possibilities." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48309107)) "a really cool example of something that Biff can do" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48307240))
- Thorough, comprehensive datetime coverage (2 comments): "I'm quite proud of it, because if you look at the implementation, it's almost entirely about dealing with the specification rules." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48310159)) "it's way more comprehensive than what I built" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46351232))
- Cool project that replaces scripts (2 comments): "Anyway, cool tool, and it's rare that I would actually care about the machine efficiency" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48313167)) "This is a really great project." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48318656))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [fzf](https://hackerapproved.com/p/fzf.md): 78 recommend
- [jq](https://hackerapproved.com/p/jq.md): 75 recommend
- [grep](https://hackerapproved.com/p/grep.md): 65 recommend
- [Atuin](https://hackerapproved.com/p/atuin.md): 63 recommend
- [GitHub CLI](https://hackerapproved.com/p/github-cli.md): 49 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Biff", https://hackerapproved.com/p/biff/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).