# Temporal API (JavaScript)

18 Hacker News commenters recommended Temporal API (JavaScript) and 7 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 4 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** People recommend it as a modern, well-designed replacement for JavaScript's Date, with clearly separated types and immutable values. Critics often say parts of the API design are awkward and the library is large.

## Why people recommend it

- Clear distinct types and immutability (3 comments): "Temporal doesn't fix that part, but at least when you do reconstruct you're saying "this is a ZonedDateTime" vs "this is an Instant"" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47345781)) "There are things about the design of Temporal I don't really like, but immutability was a solid move." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47338422)) "Temporal's API making clear distinctions between the different types" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47345036))
- Modern, well-designed replacement for Date (2 comments): "Very nice to use a modern, extremely well thought-through API!" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47337426)) "it's the much needed and improved JS, date API" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47586191))
- Date handling belongs in the platform (2 comments): "sensible date/time handling is something that really ought to be baked into the platform ootb" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48212567)) "I do agree though it's lovely, and I'd love to see native support for it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46590159))

## What people warn about

- Dislikes parts of the API design (2 comments): "A big step in the right direction, but I still don't like the API" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47338085)) "There are things about the design of Temporal I don't really like, but immutability was a solid move." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47338422))
- Missing leap-second and calendar support (2 comments): "the Temporal API, just like ~all other datetime APIs, has 0 support for querying leap-second information in any shape or form" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46591824)) "converting between certain calendars is not supported" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47344780))

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Temporal API (JavaScript)", https://hackerapproved.com/p/temporal-api/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).