Moment.php
A PHP date library for parsing, validating, manipulating, and formatting dates with internationalization (i18n) support.
What is Moment.php?
Moment.php is a PHP library for parsing, validating, manipulating, and formatting dates and times. It provides a fluent, chainable API inspired by moment.js, making complex date operations—like adding time intervals, switching timezones, and formatting dates in multiple languages—simple and intuitive. It solves the problem of cumbersome native PHP date handling by offering a more developer-friendly interface.
PHP developers who need robust date and time manipulation, especially those working on internationalized applications requiring localized date formatting and timezone management.
Developers choose Moment.php for its moment.js-like API, extensive locale support, and comprehensive feature set that simplifies date handling beyond PHP's native DateTime class. Its chainable methods and flexibility in formatting and manipulation save development time and reduce errors.
Overview
Parse, validate, manipulate, and display dates in PHP w/ i18n support. Inspired by moment.js
Use Cases
Best For
- Parsing and validating dates from various input formats (ISO8601, RFC, MySQL)
- Formatting dates for international audiences with locale support
- Manipulating dates by adding or subtracting time units (e.g., add 2 weeks, subtract 1 day)
- Handling timezone conversions and setting default timezones
- Calculating differences between dates and displaying human-readable relative times
- Getting period boundaries for weeks, months, or quarters
Not Ideal For
- Projects requiring active, long-term maintenance and frequent updates
- High-performance applications where minimal date manipulation overhead is critical
- Teams exclusively using modern PHP (7.4+) with native DateTimeImmutable sufficiency
- Applications needing extensive third-party integrations or a large plugin ecosystem
Pros & Cons
Pros
Supports over 30 locales for localized date formatting and relative times, including Arabic, Chinese, and German, as listed in the README.
Provides a fluent, moment.js-inspired interface allowing methods like addDays(7)->subtractHours(2) to be chained for easy manipulation.
Allows easy switching of timezones and setting default timezones globally, with examples for CET and UTC conversions in the README.
Includes parsing multiple formats (ISO8601, RFC, MySQL), validation, period calculations, calendar times, and start/end of units, covering most common operations.
Cons
The maintainer has publicly stated time constraints and is seeking someone to take over, risking unaddressed bugs or lack of updates for long-term projects.
As a wrapper over PHP's DateTime, it adds abstraction that may impact performance in date-intensive applications compared to direct native usage.
While it supports PHP 5.3+, it may not fully leverage newer PHP features or optimizations, such as strict typing or immutable defaults in recent versions.
Frequently Asked Questions
Found a gem we're missing?
Open-Awesome is built by the community, for the community. Submit a project, suggest an awesome list, or help improve the catalog on GitHub.