dateparser
Date parsing library designed to parse dates from HTML pages
Decision gist · record as of 2026-08-14
Yes. Dateparser is a mature, actively maintained library with no known vulnerabilities, low install friction, and broad language support. It solves a real problem in web scraping and text processing. Install it if you need to parse dates from unstructured text or HTML; skip it if you only work with standardized, single-format date strings.AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying
Before you install
- Requires Python 3.10 or later.
- Low install friction with a pure-Python wheel distribution.
- Actively maintained with a recent release (10 days old) and steady commit activity.
License · maintenance · safety
BSD-3-Clause (permissive) — BSD-3-Clause is a permissive open-source license. You can use, modify, and distribute this package freely in both open-source and proprietary projects, provided you include the license notice.
last release 2026-08-04 (10 days) · last repo commit 2026-08-13 · 2,851 stars
0 known vulnerabilities (OSV.dev, 2026-08-14) · 47,784,628 downloads/mo, #597 on PyPI
Alternatives
Verify before relying
pip install dateparser
from dateparser import parse
date_obj = parse('16/04/2019')
print(date_obj) # datetime.datetime(2019, 4, 16, 0, 0)- Performance characteristics on very large text corpora or high-frequency parsing workloads.
- Accuracy rates across different language-locale combinations beyond the changelog examples.
What it is and what it does
Dateparser is a date-parsing library designed to extract and interpret dates from unstructured text, particularly from HTML pages and web content. It handles a wide range of date formats—both absolute dates like "2019-04-16" and relative expressions like "3 days ago" or "next month"—across multiple languages and locales. The library uses python-dateutil for core datetime logic, pytz for timezone handling, tzlocal for system timezone detection, and regex for pattern matching.
The package is built for web scraping and content analysis workflows where dates appear embedded in natural language. It supports timezone-aware parsing, custom date formats, language detection, and configurable parsing strategies. Recent versions added features like ignoring surrounding text around dates, alternative search strategies for noisy input, and expanded locale support including CLDR data updates. It's actively maintained with security fixes and broad Python version support (3.10 through 3.14).
Use it for
- Extract publication dates from web articles or blog posts where dates are written in natural language.
- Parse relative date expressions in user input (e.g., "created 2 weeks ago") for filtering or sorting.
- Handle multilingual date strings in web scraping projects targeting non-English websites.
- Normalize dates from HTML pages with mixed date formats and languages into consistent datetime objects.
- Build time-span detection for queries like "past month" or "last week" in search or analytics tools.
Worth the install?
AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page. Verify before relying on it.
Yes.
Dateparser is a mature, actively maintained library with no known vulnerabilities, low install friction, and broad language support. It solves a real problem in web scraping and text processing. Install it if you need to parse dates from unstructured text or HTML; skip it if you only work with standardized, single-format date strings.
Install
dateparser on PyPI
Before you install
Low install friction with a pure-Python wheel distribution. Actively maintained with a recent release (10 days old) and steady commit activity. Four runtime dependencies (python-dateutil, pytz, regex, tzlocal) are all stable, widely-used packages.
Requires Python 3.10 or later.
License in practice
BSD-3-Clause is a permissive open-source license. You can use, modify, and distribute this package freely in both open-source and proprietary projects, provided you include the license notice.
Quickstart
pip install dateparser
from dateparser import parse
date_obj = parse('16/04/2019')
print(date_obj) # datetime.datetime(2019, 4, 16, 0, 0)Verify before relying
- Performance characteristics on very large text corpora or high-frequency parsing workloads.
- Accuracy rates across different language-locale combinations beyond the changelog examples.
Package facts
| License | BSD-3-Clause permissive |
| Python support | Supports the current Python release >=3.10 |
| Install friction | Low. Pure-Python wheel |
| Runtime dependencies | 4 packagespython-dateutilpytzregextzlocal |
| Maintenance | Actively maintained 10 days since the last release |
| Last repo commit | |
| First released | |
| Downloads | 47,784,628 / month, #597 on PyPI 30-day window, as of 2026-08-14 |
| Known vulnerabilities | None known OSV.dev, checked 2026-08-14 |
| Classifiers | Development Status :: 5 - Production/StableIntended Audience :: DevelopersNatural Language :: EnglishProgramming Language :: Python :: 3Programming Language :: Python :: 3.10Programming Language :: Python :: 3.11Programming Language :: Python :: 3.12Programming Language :: Python :: 3.13Programming Language :: Python :: 3.14Programming Language :: Python :: Implementation :: CPython |
Evidence: dateparser-1.4.2-py3-none-any.whl
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See also ctparse · datefinder · timelib · prefixdate · date-spacy · tkcalendar · htmldate · dateformat · parsedatetime · ago