Short Read: Daylight Savings is Problematic, Use UTC for Backend Systems

Daylight Savings is always painful in the context of software.

I firmly believe that backend systems should use Coordinated Univeral Time (UTC).

Why? Because it’s a standard that all types of systems understand. And it does not adjust with daylight savings time.

Whenever you store time in a database, use UTC.

I’ve seen many problems that stemmed from daylight savings. Data missing from file feeds, scheduled jobs not running, and more.

So, avoid this complexity by using a time that does not observe daylight savings.

Now, I’m not saying you should force all your users and user interfaces to be UTC. That would be a terrible experience.

The core of a system should use UTC, and where you interact with Users, convert to whatever local time you need to.

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