Utilix knowledge base
What Is a Unix Timestamp?
Published May 1, 2026
A Unix timestamp counts seconds (traditionally) since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC, not counting leap seconds in most APIs.
Why developers love it
- Time zones are explicit: store UTC, render in local time.
- Sorting and arithmetic are trivial integers.
Milliseconds vs seconds
JavaScript Date.now() returns milliseconds. Many server APIs expect seconds — divide by 1000 when converting.
Use the Unix Timestamp Converter to jump between human dates and epoch values safely.