What is bootstrap-datepicker?

uxsolutions/bootstrap-datepicker — explained in plain English

Analysis updated 2026-06-24

★ 12,659JavaScriptAudience · developerComplexity · 2/5LicenseSetup · easy

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((Bootstrap Datepicker))
    What it does
      Calendar popup
      Date selection
      Form integration
    Features
      Date formatting
      Language support
      Date restrictions
    Setup
      CDN or npm
      Bootstrap required
    Audience
      Web developers
      Bootstrap projects

mindmap root((Bootstrap Datepicker)) What it does Calendar popup Date selection Form integration Features Date formatting Language support Date restrictions Setup CDN or npm Bootstrap required Audience Web developers Bootstrap projects

Click or tap to explore — scroll the page freely

What do people build with it?

USE CASE 1

Add a calendar date picker to a form field in a Bootstrap web app so users click a date instead of typing it.

USE CASE 2

Restrict which dates a user can select, for example, only future dates for an event booking form.

USE CASE 3

Display the date picker in a language other than English using the built-in localization support.

What is it built with?

JavaScriptBootstrapCSS

How does it compare?

	uxsolutions/bootstrap-datepicker	hiteshchoudhary/chai-aur-react	d2-projects/d2-admin
Stars	12,659	12,667	12,647
Language	JavaScript	JavaScript	JavaScript
Setup difficulty	easy	easy	moderate
Complexity	2/5	1/5	3/5
Audience	developer	developer	developer

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you get it running?

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 5min

Requires Bootstrap CSS and jQuery already loaded on the page before the plugin is initialized.

Use freely for any purpose, including commercial use, as long as you keep the copyright and license notice (Apache 2.0 license).

So what is it?

Bootstrap-datepicker is a JavaScript library that adds a calendar date picker to web forms. When a user clicks on a date input field in a web page, a small calendar popup appears, letting them select a date by clicking rather than typing. The library is built to work with Bootstrap, a widely used set of CSS and JavaScript components for building consistent-looking web interfaces. The library is one of the oldest and most downloaded date picker add-ons in the Bootstrap ecosystem. It handles things like formatting the selected date, restricting which dates can be chosen, and displaying the calendar in different languages. An online demo is available on the project's GitHub Pages site, and full documentation lives on a separate ReadTheDocs page rather than in the repository itself. The README for this project is sparse. It contains links to the documentation, demo, CDN hosting details, and brief notes on how to set up a development environment to contribute. The actual configuration options, events, and usage instructions are not in the README and must be read in the external documentation. Installation is straightforward: the library can be loaded directly from a content delivery network without downloading anything, or installed via npm or yarn for projects that use a build process. The project is licensed under the Apache 2.0 license. This is a mature, widely adopted library that has been around for many years, but its age also means that more modern alternatives exist for projects not already tied to Bootstrap. If you are building a new project, the README does not discuss alternatives or trade-offs, as it is focused entirely on existing users of the library.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1

I'm using Bootstrap and want a date picker on a form. Show me the HTML and JavaScript to set up bootstrap-datepicker on a text input, loaded from a CDN.

Prompt 2

How do I configure bootstrap-datepicker to only allow users to select dates after today, so past dates are disabled in the calendar?

Prompt 3

My form needs start and end dates. How do I link two bootstrap-datepicker fields so the end date cannot be set before the start date?

Prompt 4

How do I show the bootstrap-datepicker calendar in French without changing any other part of my page?

Frequently asked questions