Benchmark: luxon vs dayjs vs date-fns vs temporal-polyfill (formatting)

HTML Preparation code:

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/luxon/3.5.0/luxon.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/dayjs/1.11.13/dayjs.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/date-fns/4.1.0/cdn.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/temporal-polyfill@0.2.5/global.min.js"></script>

Script Preparation code:

window.timestamp = 1735660089
window.intlFormat = {
  year: "numeric",
  month: "2-digit",
  day: "2-digit",
  hour: "numeric",
  minute: "numeric",
  hour12: true,
}

Tests:

luxon v3.5.0
var date = luxon.DateTime.fromMillis(timestamp * 1000); date.toLocaleString(intlFormat)
dayjs v1.11.13
var date = dayjs(timestamp * 1000); date.format("L LT")
date-fns v4.1.0
var date = dateFns.fromUnixTime(timestamp); dateFns.intlFormat(date, intlFormat)
temporal-polyfill 0.2.5
var instant = Temporal.Instant.fromEpochMilliseconds(timestamp * 1000) instant.toLocaleString(intlFormat)

Rendered benchmark preparation results:

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Previous results

Test case name	Result
luxon v3.5.0
dayjs v1.11.13
date-fns v4.1.0
temporal-polyfill 0.2.5

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: 23 days ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Android 15; Mobile; rv:134.0) Gecko/134.0 Firefox/134.0

Browser/OS: Firefox Mobile 134 on Android

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
luxon v3.5.0	307783.6 Ops/sec
dayjs v1.11.13	1030901.2 Ops/sec
date-fns v4.1.0	9465.6 Ops/sec
temporal-polyfill 0.2.5	9423.7 Ops/sec

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model gpt-4o-mini, generated one month ago):

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

In this benchmark, various JavaScript libraries for date manipulation and formatting are evaluated based on their performance. The libraries under comparison are Luxon, Day.js, Date-fns, and the Temporal Polyfill. The benchmark focuses specifically on creating and formatting date objects derived from a given timestamp.

### Libraries being compared:

1. **Luxon (v3.5.0)**:
   - **Purpose**: Luxon is a library for working with dates and times that utilizes the modern JavaScript DateTime API. It provides a clear and powerful approach for date manipulations, including parsing, formatting, and working with time zones.
   - **Pros**: Luxon has a well-designed API that is easy to use and offers features for internationalization and formatting.
   - **Cons**: It may have a larger footprint compared to smaller libraries and may perform slower in high-frequency operations due to its rich feature set.

2. **Day.js (v1.11.13)**:
   - **Purpose**: Day.js is a minimalist JavaScript library for date manipulation. It aims to maintain the same API as Moment.js while using a much smaller size and better performance.
   - **Pros**: Very lightweight and fast, Day.js is great for simple date manipulations. Its API is quite intuitive and familiar for those who have used Moment.js.
   - **Cons**: It may lack some advanced features found in larger libraries, although plugins are available to add such functionalities.

3. **Date-fns (v4.1.0)**:
   - **Purpose**: Date-fns provides utility functions for manipulating dates in a functional programming style. It is modular, meaning you can import only the functions you need.
   - **Pros**: Highly composable and tree-shakeable, making it easy to include only what you need in your project. It has a consistent and friendly API.
   - **Cons**: There could be a learning curve if you are not familiar with functional programming styles, and the performance may not match lighter libraries like Day.js.

4. **Temporal Polyfill (v0.2.5)**:
   - **Purpose**: This library is a polyfill for the Temporal API, which is a new standard currently being proposed for handling dates and times in JavaScript. The polyfill allows developers to use the Temporal API features before they are officially standardized in JavaScript engines.
   - **Pros**: A modern approach to date handling that includes capabilities currently lacking in the native Date object, such as better time zone handling and easier manipulation.
   - **Cons**: Since it is a polyfill, it might not yet have complete coverage and certain features may change as the specification evolves.

### Test Cases Explained

Each of the individual tests compares how each library handles the task of converting a Unix timestamp (given in seconds) to a date object and then formatting that date based on specified options:
- **Luxon**: Creates a DateTime from milliseconds (hence the multiplication by 1000) and formats it using toLocaleString with the international options set in the script preparation code.
- **Day.js**: Utilizes its built-in format method, with a predefined format string that represents "locale" and "local time".
- **Date-fns**: Uses fromUnixTime to create a date object and intlFormat for formatting, utilizing its functional approach.
- **Temporal Polyfill**: Uses the new Temporal API to create an Instant and formats it similarly using toLocaleString.

### Performance Results

The results show the executions per second for each library, indicating performance under the given conditions:
- **Day.js** significantly outperforms the others with 1,313,909.5 executions per second. This suggests that it is particularly optimized for such operations.
- **Luxon** shows a respectable performance of 560,830.375, indicating it has efficient handling for complex operations, but also has the overhead of additional functionalities.
- **Date-fns** and **Temporal Polyfill** show much lower performance, with about 28,431 and 28,064 executions per second, respectively. This indicates that they may not be as optimized for high-frequency operations but offer strong capabilities for more complex date manipulations.

### Alternatives and Considerations

While the libraries compared here are popular choices for date manipulation and formatting, alternatives include:
- **Moment.js**: A once-dominant library that is now considered legacy. It is large and includes many functionalities, but it is not recommended for new projects due to its size and performance issues.
- **Native Date object**: For simple use cases, using JavaScript’s built-in Date object can suffice, though it lacks advanced functionalities and may lead to cumbersome handling for time zone conversions and more complex date operations.

In conclusion, engineers should consider the specific requirements of their projects, such as performance needs, the complexity of date manipulations, and bundle size constraints when choosing between these libraries.

Related benchmarks:

luxon vs dayjs vs date-fns vs temporal-polyfill (formatting) (version: 2)

Create and format dates from a timestamp

Comparing performance of: luxon v3.5.0 vs dayjs v1.11.13 vs date-fns v4.1.0 vs temporal-polyfill 0.2.5

Created: one month ago by: Registered User

Jump to the latest result

luxon v3.5.0

dayjs v1.11.13

date-fns v4.1.0

temporal-polyfill 0.2.5

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Experimental features:

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model gpt-4o-mini, generated one month ago):