Moving From Moment.js To The JS Temporal API

Almost any kind of application written in JavaScript works with times or dates in some capacity. In the beginning, this was limited to the built-in Date API. This API includes basic functionality, but is quite limited in what it can do. Third-party libraries like Moment.js, and later built-in APIs such as the Intl APIs and the new Temporal API , add much greater flexibility to working with times and dates. The Rise And Fall Of Moment.js Moment.js is a JavaScript library with powerful utilities for working with times and dates. It includes missing features from the basic Date API , such as time zone manipulation, and makes many common operations simpler. Moment also includes functions for formatting dates and times. It became a widely used library in many different applications. However, Moment also had its share of issues. It’s a large library, and can add significantly to an application’s bundle size. Because the library doesn’t support tree shaking (a feature of modern bundlers that can remove unused parts of libraries), the entire Moment library is included even if you only use one or two of its functions. Another issue with Moment is the fact that the objects it creates are mutable . Calling certain functions on a Moment object has side effects and mutates the value of that object. This can lead to unexpected behavior or bugs. In 2020, the maintainers of Moment decided to put the library into maintenance mode. No new feature development is being done, and the maintainers recommend against using it for new projects. There are other JavaScript date libraries, such as date-fns , but there’s a new player in town, an API built directly into JavaScript: Temporal . It’s a new standard that fills in the holes of the original Date API as well as solves some of the limitations found in Moment and other libraries. What Is Temporal? Temporal is a new time and date API being added to the ECMAScript standard, which defines modern JavaScript. As of March 2026, it has reached S