jQuery Script Blog

7 Best JavaScript Timeago Plugins For Human-readable Datetime Format

by jQueryScript,
Date FormatRelative Date

This blog post covers 7 of the best open source jQuery plugins and JavaScript libraries for formatting date and time strings. These plugins (libraries) convert raw timestamps into auto-updating and human-readable format (e.g. "30 minutes ago", "3 days ago") to provide users with relatable context about when events occurred or content was published. 

What Is Timeago?

Relative date and time strings, or "timeago" text, improves user experience by translating hardcoded dates and times into dynamic strings based on the current date. Rather than seeing "Posted on January 1, 2023," viewers see "Posted 6 months ago" — a format that is constantly self-updating and doesn't require mental math to determine when content was created. 

7 Best Time Ago JavaScript Plugins

The options featured in this list represent some of the most popular, well-supported, and full-featured relative date/time JavaScript plugins available as open source. They are ranked based on their functionality, downloads/views, popularity, and, most importantly, their effectiveness in delivering accurate relative times. Let's get started.

Originally Published June 14 2023, updated Mar 28 2026

1. Lightweight Human Readable Date & Time Library – timeago.js

A lightweight and pure JavaScript version of the familiar jQuery timeago plugin that allows to parse and format dates & times using natural language like ‘5 minutes ago’.

Lightweight Human Readable Date & Time Library – timeago.js

[Demo] [Download]

2. Relative Timestamps Update jQuery Plugin - timeago

A smart and useful jQuery Plugin for updating fuzzy timestamps in your document automatically and intelligently. It supports almost all the major languages.

Relative Timestamps Update jQuery Plugin - timeago

[Demo] [Download]

3. Convert Timestamp To User-friendly Format – relative-time.js

A lightweight (less than 1kb), standalone relative time JavaScript library that converts timestamps to human-readable time format such as “5 mins ago”, “in 7 days”, and so on.

Convert Timestamp To User-friendly Format – relative-time.js

[Demo] [Download]

4. User-Friendly Date Formatting Plugin - prettydate

A jQuery plugin inspired from Twitter Timeline for creating User-Friendly date formatting (x days ago, yesterday, just now, etc. ) for your projects. To use this plugin, you have to add an ISO8601 date to title attribute of your links. It uses clientside date and supports auto update without modifing your codes.

User-Friendly Date Formatting Plugin - prettydate

[Demo] [Download]

5. Convert Unix Timestamp Into Human-readable Date Format – time-to-readable.js

A tiny and multilingual time ago JavaScript library that converts the content of an element with the “data-ago” attribute (value = UNIX milliseconds), into human-readable format such as xx days ago.

Convert Unix Timestamp Into Human-readable Date Format – time-to-readable.js

[Demo] [Download]

6. Convert Epoch Unix Timestamp Into A Human Readable Format – timeago.js

A tiny and multilingual time ago JavaScript library that converts the content of an element with the “data-ago” attribute (value = UNIX milliseconds), into human-readable format such as xx days ago.

Convert Epoch Unix Timestamp Into A Human Readable Format – timeago.js

[Demo] [Download]

7. Convert UTC Datetime Into Human Readable Format - UTC-time

The UTC-time jQuery plugin automatically converts ISO formatted UTC time (last 60 days) into a human readable, auto updating string: x days/hours/minutes/seconds ago.

Convert UTC Datetime Into Human Readable Format - UTC-time

[Demo] [Download]

More Resources:

Looking for more jQuery plugins or JavaScript libraries to implement the timeago functionality on the web & mobile? See jQuery Timeago Plugin and JavaScript Timeago sections.

See Also: