Pros of moment

• Comprehensive date and time manipulation library with extensive features
• Supports parsing, validating, manipulating, and formatting dates
• Well-established with a large community and extensive documentation

Cons of moment

• Larger bundle size, which can impact performance in browser environments
• More complex API due to its extensive feature set
• No longer recommended for new projects (in maintenance mode)

Code comparison

moment:

const duration = moment.duration(123456789);
console.log(duration.humanize()); // "1 day"
console.log(duration.asHours());  // 34.293552500000005

pretty-ms:

const prettyMs = require('pretty-ms');
console.log(prettyMs(123456789)); // "1d 10h 17m 36s 789ms"
console.log(prettyMs(123456789, {compact: true})); // "1d 10h"

Key differences

• pretty-ms focuses specifically on converting milliseconds to human-readable strings
• moment provides a more comprehensive date and time manipulation toolkit
• pretty-ms is lightweight and has a simpler API for its specific use case
• moment offers more flexibility in formatting and manipulating dates and times

Use cases

• Choose pretty-ms for simple millisecond to human-readable string conversion
• Use moment for complex date and time operations, parsing, and formatting
• Consider alternatives like date-fns or Luxon for new projects requiring comprehensive date/time functionality

Pros of date-fns

• Comprehensive date manipulation library with a wide range of functions
• Modular architecture allows for tree-shaking and smaller bundle sizes
• Supports multiple locales for internationalization

Cons of date-fns

• Larger package size compared to pretty-ms
• Steeper learning curve due to its extensive API
• May be overkill for simple time formatting tasks

Code Comparison

pretty-ms:

import prettyMs from 'pretty-ms';

console.log(prettyMs(1337000000)); // Output: 15d 11h 23m 20s

date-fns:

import { formatDuration, intervalToDuration } from 'date-fns';

const duration = intervalToDuration({ start: 0, end: 1337000000 });
console.log(formatDuration(duration)); // Output: 15 days 11 hours 23 minutes 20 seconds

pretty-ms is a lightweight library focused on converting milliseconds to human-readable strings, while date-fns is a more comprehensive date manipulation library. pretty-ms excels in simplicity and ease of use for basic time formatting tasks, whereas date-fns offers a broader range of date-related functions and more flexibility in formatting options. The choice between the two depends on the specific requirements of your project and the complexity of date operations needed.

Pros of dayjs

• More comprehensive date and time manipulation library
• Supports parsing, validating, manipulating, and formatting dates
• Chainable API for more complex operations

Cons of dayjs

• Larger bundle size due to more features
• May be overkill for simple time formatting tasks
• Steeper learning curve for basic use cases

Code comparison

pretty-ms:

import prettyMs from 'pretty-ms';

console.log(prettyMs(1337000000));
// Output: 15d 11h 23m 20s

dayjs:

import dayjs from 'dayjs';
import duration from 'dayjs/plugin/duration';

dayjs.extend(duration);
console.log(dayjs.duration(1337000000).format('D[d] H[h] m[m] s[s]'));
// Output: 15d 11h 23m 20s

Summary

pretty-ms is a lightweight library focused on converting milliseconds to human-readable strings, while dayjs is a more feature-rich date and time manipulation library. pretty-ms is simpler to use for basic time formatting tasks, but dayjs offers more flexibility for complex date and time operations. The choice between the two depends on the specific requirements of your project and the level of functionality needed.

Pros of ms

• Smaller package size and simpler implementation
• Supports both parsing and formatting of time strings
• Has a longer history and more widespread adoption

Cons of ms

• Less customization options for output formatting
• Doesn't support millisecond precision
• Limited localization support

Code Comparison

ms:

ms('2 days')  // 172800000
ms('1d')      // 86400000
ms(60000)     // '1m'

pretty-ms:

prettyMs(1337000000) // '15d 11h 23m 20s'
prettyMs(1337)       // '1.3s'
prettyMs(133)        // '133ms'

Key Differences

• ms focuses on simplicity and bidirectional conversion between milliseconds and human-readable strings
• pretty-ms specializes in formatting milliseconds into more detailed, customizable human-readable strings
• ms uses shorthand notations (e.g., '2d' for 2 days), while pretty-ms provides more verbose output by default
• pretty-ms offers options for customizing output format, including unit display and precision

Use Cases

• Choose ms for simple time string parsing and basic formatting needs
• Opt for pretty-ms when more detailed and customizable time formatting is required, especially for displaying durations to end-users

Pros of tinydate

• Extremely lightweight (294 bytes minified + gzipped)
• Focused on date formatting with a simple, customizable API
• Faster performance for basic date formatting tasks

Cons of tinydate

• Limited functionality compared to pretty-ms (only handles date formatting)
• Doesn't support time duration formatting or parsing
• No built-in localization support

Code Comparison

tinydate:

import tinydate from 'tinydate';
const stamp = tinydate('{YYYY}-{MM}-{DD}');
console.log(stamp(new Date()));

pretty-ms:

import prettyMs from 'pretty-ms';
console.log(prettyMs(1337000000));
console.log(prettyMs(1337, { verbose: true }));

Summary

tinydate is a minimalist library focused on date formatting, offering a tiny footprint and fast performance. It's ideal for projects that only need basic date formatting functionality.

pretty-ms, on the other hand, is more versatile, specializing in converting milliseconds to human-readable strings. It offers more features like time duration formatting and verbose output options.

Choose tinydate for lightweight date formatting needs, and pretty-ms for more comprehensive time and duration handling requirements.