Comparing
Better dates and times in Python — timezone-aware by default, human-friendly API, and natural language parsing.
Drop-in datetime replacement with first-class timezone support, DST awareness, and intuitive arithmetic.
| Metric | arrow | pendulum |
|---|---|---|
| Ecosystem | Python | Python |
| Difficulty | Beginner | Beginner |
| Weekly downloads | 2.5M↑ | 2.0M |
| Latest version | v1.3.0 | v3.0.0 |
| Recipes | 1 | 1 |
arrow only
Shared
pendulum only
Any application dealing with dates across timezones, relative time displays ('posted 2 days ago'), date parsing from strings, date range iteration, or when you want less boilerplate than stdlib datetime.
Scheduling apps, calendar features, time-series data across timezones, any app where DST bugs would be costly.
High-frequency numerical date computations (use numpy datetime64 or pandas Timestamp which are faster). Arrow adds overhead per operation.
Simple UTC-only timestamps where datetime.now(timezone.utc) is sufficient. pendulum is heavier than stdlib.
arrow
pendulum