I Built a Better World Time API

Have you ever needed to get the current time or timezone for a specific timezone or IP address, only to find that the available APIs are unreliable, outdated, or closed source? I did - and I decided to build a better solution.

Why Build a New World Time API?

The original worldtimeapi.org is a great idea, but it’s had its share of downtime and data issues. Other commercial APIs are often closed source, limited in features, or don’t offer plain text responses. I wanted something that was:

Fast and reliable
Open source
Up-to-date
Easy to use
Compatible with the World Time API

Introducing: timeapi.world

This project is a drop-in replacement for worldtimeapi.org, built with TypeScript and Cloudflare Workers for speed and scalability. It’s open source and free to use (currently up to 20,000 requests a month, commercial plans are available if you need more).

Key features:

🚀 High performance (Cloudflare Workers)
🟢 Reliable (serverless, global edge network)
📅 Frequently updated (IANA timezone + MaxMind GeoIP with automated updates)
📝 JSON & plain text responses
🌍 Geo IP support
🔄 Backwards compatible with worldtimeapi.org
👐 Open source
🧑‍💻 Swagger/OpenAPI docs

API Endpoints

The API follows the World Time API spec:

Timezone Endpoints

GET /api/timezone – List all available timezones (JSON)
GET /api/timezone.txt – List all available timezones (plain text)
GET /api/timezone/{area} – List timezones for a specific area
GET /api/timezone/{area}/{location} – Get current time for a location
GET /api/timezone/{area}/{location}/{region} – Get current time for a region

IP-based Endpoints

GET /api/ip – Get time based on client IP
GET /api/ip/{ipv4} – Get time for a specific IP

All endpoints support both JSON and plain text (just add .txt).

Example Responses

JSON:

{
  "utc_offset": "-04:00",
  "timezone": "America/New_York",
  "day_of_week": 6,
  "day_of_year": 214,
  "datetime": "2025-08-02T13:02:11.703-04:00",
  "utc_datetime": "2025-08-02T17:02:11.703+00:00",
  "unixtime": 1754154131,
  "raw_offset": -18000,
  "week_number": 31,
  "dst": true,
  "abbreviation": "EDT",
  "dst_offset": 3600,
  "dst_from": "2025-03-09T07:00:00+00:00",
  "dst_until": "2025-11-02T06:00:00+00:00",
  "client_ip": "127.0.0.1"
}

Plain Text:

utc_offset: -04:00
timezone: America/New_York
day_of_week: 6
day_of_year: 214
datetime: 2025-08-02T13:02:51.390-04:00
utc_datetime: 2025-08-02T17:02:51.390+00:00
unixtime: 1754154171
raw_offset: -18000
week_number: 31
dst: true
abbreviation: EDT
dst_offset: 3600
dst_from: 2025-03-09T07:00:00+00:00
dst_until: 2025-11-02T06:00:00+00:00
client_ip: 127.0.0.1

Data Sources

Timezone data: IANA timezone database
Geo IP data: MaxMind GeoLite2

Both are industry standards and updated regularly using automation scripts.

How It Works

The API is built with:

TypeScript for type safety
Hono web framework for performance
Cloudflare Workers for global edge deployment
Cloudflare D1 for database storage

All endpoints handle both JSON and plain text, with proper error handling and CORS support.

Get Started

Check it out at https://timeapi.world/

Let’s make time APIs better for everyone.

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Sleeyax @sleeyax