# date-fns

5 Hacker News commenters recommended date-fns and 1 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 2 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** A battle-tested JavaScript date library with pure functions that works alongside Temporal. Critics argue native platform features now make such libraries unnecessary.

## Why people recommend it

- Battle-tested production library (1 comments): "proven, battle-tested production libraries" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46425666))
- Pure functions for date data (1 comments): "I'd clearly prefer a set of pure functions, into which I can pass data-only temporal objects, quite a bit like date-fns did it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47338085))
- Works alongside Temporal for templated strings (1 comments): "date-fns or luxon work fine alongside Temporal if you need templated strings" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47339783))
- Great, though Temporal offers more (1 comments): "date-fns is great but it can't give you that." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47338339))

## What people warn about

- Native platform features make it unnecessary (1 comments): "I would argue that it is unwarranted to use such libraries, because we can do better in Vanilla with platform features now." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48196517))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [jQuery](https://hackerapproved.com/p/jquery.md): 111 recommend
- [Picknplace.js](https://hackerapproved.com/p/picknplace-js.md): 58 recommend
- [Alpine.js](https://hackerapproved.com/p/alpine-js.md): 50 recommend
- [Effect (TypeScript library)](https://hackerapproved.com/p/effect.md): 38 recommend
- [Video.js](https://hackerapproved.com/p/video-js.md): 24 recommend

## Cite as

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