Temporal API (JavaScript)
Hacker ApprovedDate and time API in Developer tools
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.
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.
25 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 18
- criticize it
- 7
- approval share
- 72%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 18 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2.6 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Clear distinct types and immutability
“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"”
Comment from 12 Mar 2026 in “Temporal: The 9-Year Journey to Fix Time in JavaScript” “There are things about the design of Temporal I don't really like, but immutability was a solid move.”
Comment from 11 Mar 2026 in “Temporal: The 9-Year Journey to Fix Time in JavaScript” “Temporal's API making clear distinctions between the different types”
Comment from 12 Mar 2026 in “Temporal: The 9-Year Journey to Fix Time in JavaScript” Modern, well-designed replacement for Date
“Very nice to use a modern, extremely well thought-through API!”
Comment from 11 Mar 2026 in “Temporal: The 9-Year Journey to Fix Time in JavaScript” “it's the much needed and improved JS, date API”
Comment from 31 Mar 2026 in “Axios Compromised on NPM – Malicious Versions Drop Remote Access Trojan” Date handling belongs in the platform
“sensible date/time handling is something that really ought to be baked into the platform ootb”
Comment from 20 May 2026 in “Node.js 26.0.0 (Now with Temporal)” “I do agree though it's lovely, and I'd love to see native support for it.”
Comment from 12 Jan 2026 in “Date is out, Temporal is in”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Dislikes parts of the API design
“A big step in the right direction, but I still don't like the API”
Comment from 11 Mar 2026 in “Temporal: The 9-Year Journey to Fix Time in JavaScript” “There are things about the design of Temporal I don't really like, but immutability was a solid move.”
Comment from 11 Mar 2026 in “Temporal: The 9-Year Journey to Fix Time in JavaScript” Missing leap-second and calendar support
“the Temporal API, just like ~all other datetime APIs, has 0 support for querying leap-second information in any shape or form”
Comment from 12 Jan 2026 in “Date is out, Temporal is in” “converting between certain calendars is not supported”
Comment from 12 Mar 2026 in “Temporal: The 9-Year Journey to Fix Time in JavaScript”
What people said
26 of the 28 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“There needs to be a fallback, but when supported `Temporal.Now.instant()` is the solution.”
“`d.add({ days: 100 })` also wraps like you'd expect. `d.with({ day: 208 })` becomes the last day of the month instead”
“sensible date/time handling is something that really ought to be baked into the platform ootb”
“it's the much needed and improved JS, date API”
“I'm not happy with the extra `ISO` that millions of developers and AI agents will have to be typing in the decades to come.”
“older devices won't be updated making this a nice add-on at best”
“If they at least had a Temporal.nowlocal() and a Temporal.nowUTC() that returned a ZonedDateTime”
“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"”
“Temporal's API making clear distinctions between the different types”
“converting between certain calendars is not supported”
“I don't believe this is problematic because if you know you're sending a Date”
“I was really turned off by how much of the codebase was just rote mapping properties from one layer to the next”
“would've been nice if it was like this from the start”
“The real drawback of the functional approach is UX, because it's harder to code and you don't get nice auto-complete.”
“There are things about the design of Temporal I don't really like, but immutability was a solid move.”
“I've been using it server-side via the js-temporal polyfill for some time, no issues.”
“A big step in the right direction, but I still don't like the API”
“Very nice to use a modern, extremely well thought-through API!”
“The prefix says nothing about the behavior of the class.”
“It supports equality , which is a nonsense concept.”
“Note that this is 51kb, it's not exactly lightweight”
“the Temporal API, just like ~all other datetime APIs, has 0 support for querying leap-second information in any shape or form”
“It's a web standard api and very small weight.”
“Temporal.Instant has no way at all to create it given a current year/month/day”
“I am not sure if I like mixing value and formatting in single object”
“I do agree though it's lovely, and I'd love to see native support for it.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.