Benchmark: luxon vs dayjs vs date-fns vs temporal-polyfill vs moment (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 src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/moment.js/2.29.1/moment.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)
moment.js v2.29.1
var date = moment(timestamp) date.format("L LT")

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
moment.js v2.29.1

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Latest run results:

Run details: (Test run date: 6 days ago)

User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/131.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Browser/OS: Chrome 131 on Mac OS X 10.15.7

View result in a separate tab

Test name	Executions per second
luxon v3.5.0	530374.4 Ops/sec
dayjs v1.11.13	1193923.9 Ops/sec
date-fns v4.1.0	27257.0 Ops/sec
temporal-polyfill 0.2.5	26483.5 Ops/sec
moment.js v2.29.1	840417.4 Ops/sec

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model gpt-4o-mini, generated 5 days ago):

LLMs can make mistakes. Check important info.

The provided JSON benchmarks various JavaScript date libraries' performance in formatting dates from a Unix timestamp. The libraries being compared are Luxon, Day.js, Date-fns, Temporal-Polyfill, and Moment.js. Here's a breakdown of what is being tested, the options compared, their pros and cons, as well as alternative approaches.

### Libraries Compared

1. **Luxon (v3.5.0)**
   - **Purpose**: Luxon is a library for working with dates and times in JavaScript. It is built on top of the modern JavaScript `Intl` API and provides a rich API for handling dates, times, durations, and intervals.
   - **Pros**: Ization of time zones, localization support from the start, immutable date objects.
   - **Cons**: Larger bundle size compared to simpler libraries, and the API may be more complex for simple date manipulations.

2. **Day.js (v1.11.13)**
   - **Purpose**: Day.js is a minimalist JavaScript date library that provides a simple API for date manipulation, resembling Moment.js but with a much smaller footprint.
   - **Pros**: Lightweight, simple to use, and faster performance than Moment.js.
   - **Cons**: Limited in feature set compared to Luxon and Moment.js; lacks built-in timezone support.

3. **Date-fns (v4.1.0)**
   - **Purpose**: Date-fns is a modular date manipulation library. Each function is its module, allowing developers to include only the parts they need.
   - **Pros**: Small final bundle size when using tree-shaking, simple functional programming style leveraging native Date objects.
   - **Cons**: As it uses native Date, handling time zones can be cumbersome; fewer features compared to Luxon or Moment.js.

4. **Temporal-Polyfill (v0.2.5)**
   - **Purpose**: Temporal is a proposed addition to JavaScript for working with dates and times in a more precise and user-friendly way than the native Date object. The polyfill allows developers to start using it today before it becomes a standard.
   - **Pros**: Aims to solve many common issues with the current Date handling. Immutable and straightforward.
   - **Cons**: Still in development, which can lead to breaking changes; additional polyfill size.

5. **Moment.js (v2.29.1)**
   - **Purpose**: Moment.js is a comprehensive library for parsing, validating, manipulating, and formatting dates in JavaScript.
   - **Pros**: Very mature, broad community support, and many plugins available.
   - **Cons**: Large footprint, performance issues due to its extensive feature set, and it is now in maintenance mode with no new features planned.

### Test Case Logic

Each benchmark case tests the performance of creating a date object from a Unix timestamp and then formatting it according to the specified format in `intlFormat`. The formatting options include year, month, day, hour, minute, and whether to use the 12-hour clock.

### Performance Results

From the benchmark results, the following performance metrics were observed:

- **Day.js**: 1,193,923.88 executions per second, performing the fastest among the tested libraries.
- **Moment.js**: 840,417.44 executions per second, performing well but slower than Day.js.
- **Luxon**: 530,374.38 executions per second, slower primarily due to its rich feature set.
- **Date-fns**: 27,257.02 executions per second, showing the lowest performance, likely due to its API design.
- **Temporal-Polyfill**: 26,483.53 executions per second, also among the slower performers.

### Considerations and Alternatives

When choosing a date library, consider the following:

- **Project Size**: For lightweight applications, Day.js or Date-fns may be more suitable. Luxon may be preferred for projects that require extensive date and time manipulations.
- **Features Needed**: If features like timezone handling and advanced formatting are required, Luxon is preferred.
- **Future-Proofing**: The Temporal API represents a potential future standard for date handling in JavaScript, and developers may want to evaluate leveraging the polyfill for compatibility.
- **Usage Patterns**: Assess how dates are handled in the application and whether the overhead of additional libraries can be justified.

Ultimately, the best choice depends on project requirements, existing tooling, and long-term maintainability.

Related benchmarks:

luxon vs dayjs vs date-fns vs temporal-polyfill vs moment (formatting) (version: 1)

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 vs moment.js v2.29.1

Created: 6 days ago by: Guest

Jump to the latest result

luxon v3.5.0

dayjs v1.11.13

date-fns v4.1.0

temporal-polyfill 0.2.5

moment.js v2.29.1

Suite status: <idle, ready to run>

Experimental features:

Fastest: N/A

Slowest: N/A

Autogenerated LLM Summary (model gpt-4o-mini, generated 5 days ago):