react-datetime-picker ships the interface and tells you when not to use it

Three components behind one input

The DateTimePicker component displays an input field complete with custom inputs, a native input, a calendar and a clock, and the calendar and clock come from separate packages, React-Calendar and React-Clock, which the author also publishes separately. That separation is why the styling instructions ask you to import three style sheets, one for the picker, one for the calendar and one for the clock, and it means a project that wants only a date can use the date picker and a project that wants only a time can use the time picker, with the readme explicitly saying the two will play nicely with this one. The headline features are the two that usually decide such a library. It supports virtually any language, and it does not need moment.js. Both are consequential, because the usual reason a team reaches for a heavy date library is localisation, and moment.js was the default answer for years.

The readme argues for the native input instead

The most unusual thing about this repository is a section titled consider native alternative, and it argues against the package. If you do not need to support legacy browsers and do not need the advanced features it provides, the readme says to use the native datetime input instead, on three grounds: it is more accessible, it adds no extra weight to your bundle, and it works better on mobile devices. The example given is a single line of markup.

<input aria-label="Date and time" type="datetime-local" />

The argument is correct, and it is worth taking seriously for a specific reason. A native datetime input on a phone gives the user the platform picker, with the platform's own localisation, its own accessibility behaviour and its own handling of the input mode, which a JavaScript calendar cannot easily match. The counterargument, which the package exists to answer, is that the native control is not the same on every platform, it does not give you a custom calendar, and it cannot be styled to match a design system. An author who tells you when not to use their own library is telling you the boundary of its value, and that is more useful than a readme that claims universal superiority.

Localisation comes from the platform, at the cost of the platform

The localisation story and the browser support story are the same story, and the readme joins them explicitly. React-Calendar, on which the picker relies heavily, uses modern web technologies, which is why the whole thing is fast, lightweight and easy to style, but that comes at the cost of supporting only modern browsers, with a link to the browser compatibility data for internationalisation. That is the trade, and it is the one thing a team with a broad support matrix has to check. The compatibility table is about React versions rather than browsers, and it is short: React 16.8 or later gets the latest release, 16.3 gets the 4.x line, and 16.0 gets the 2.x line. Your project needs React 16.3 or later, with the table pointing you to an older version of the package if you are behind that.

The API is a controlled value and a change handler

The usage example is a controlled component, with the value held in state and the change handler passed in, and the type definitions for the value are worth understanding because they allow two shapes. The value can be a single date or null, or it can be a pair of those, which is what makes the component usable for a range selection.

import { useState } from 'react';
import DateTimePicker from 'react-datetime-picker';

type ValuePiece = Date | null;

type Value = ValuePiece | [ValuePiece, ValuePiece];

function MyApp() {
  const [value, onChange] = useState<Value>(new Date());

  return (
    <div>
      <DateTimePicker onChange={onChange} value={value} />
    </div>
  );
}

The prop table is long and includes accessibility labels for each part of the control, with an aria label for the AM and PM select input, one for the calendar button and more in the same vein, along with options for automatic focus and for passing props through to the underlying calendar component. Having the labels in the table rather than hidden in the documentation is a sign of how seriously the library treats screen reader support, which is also the ground on which the native input argument is won.

Styling is three imports and a monorepo with Biome

If you want to build on the default styling of the picker, the calendar and the clock, you import three style sheets, and the readme says the default React-DateTime-Picker, React-Calendar and React-Clock styling is the intended base to build on.

import 'react-datetime-picker/dist/DateTimePicker.css';
import 'react-calendar/dist/Calendar.css';
import 'react-clock/dist/Clock.css';

The repository is now a monorepo, and the root manifest makes the shape clear. The workspaces are the packages directory and a test workspace, and the scripts fan out across them with the yarn workspaces foreach command for formatting, linting, testing, type checking and unit tests, with a single build command that builds the picker package. The package manager is pinned to Yarn 4.17.1, husky is installed by a postinstall hook, and the linting and formatting configuration is a single Biome file, with a husky directory for the hooks themselves. There is also a sample directory, a minimal demo application built with Vite, which the readme points at along with an online demo of the same thing.

A steady release line with an active branch

The maintenance picture is a project that ships regularly and keeps working. The release list shows 7.0.1 in August 2025, 7.0.2 in April 2026 and 7.1.0 at the end of July 2026, and the last push was on 2026-10-07, so the branch is being worked on between releases. The default branch is main, the licence is MIT, and the package is published to npm under the name react-datetime-picker, which is what you install. The dependency on React-Calendar and React-Clock is a design decision with consequences for upgrades, since three packages have to move together for a change in the calendar to reach your date and time pickers, and that is the main thing to watch when you bump versions. For most teams the honest summary is that the library is in good shape, the maintainer is honest about its limits, and the decision to use it rather than the native input should be made on whether you need the advanced features, not on habit.

Editorial conclusion

react-datetime-picker earns its place when you need a single consistent date and time control across desktop and mobile browsers, or when you need localisation in a language your users read, since the calendar and clock are separate components you can also use on their own. It is the wrong choice for many projects, and the author says so himself, since the native input is more accessible, adds nothing to your bundle and behaves better on mobile. Verify three things before you adopt it: whether your browser support matrix allows the modern web platform features the calendar relies on, since that is an explicit cost of the design, whether your React version is in the supported range, which is 16.3 or later with a compatibility table for older versions, and how the picker behaves for the ranges your form needs, since the value type accepts either a single date or a pair. The licence is MIT, the newest release is v7.1.0 from 2026-07-29, and the last push was on 2026-10-07.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. License: MIT
2. Project website
3. README
4. Releases
5. wojtekmaj/react-datetime-picker on GitHub