In today’s globalized and mobile-first world, applications often need to handle phone numbers from multiple countries and regions. However, parsing, validating, and formatting phone numbers correctly across diverse international formats is far from trivial. That’s where phone number libraries come in. These libraries abstract away the complexities of regional rules, carrier codes, country prefixes, and number patterns, allowing developers to focus on building robust applications.
Here’s a roundup of the Top 10 Phone Number Libraries for phone number library global number parsing that stand out due to their accuracy, reliability, and wide adoption.
1. libphonenumber (Google)
Language: Java, C++, JavaScript (and ports to other languages)
Why it stands out:
libphonenumber is the gold standard for phone number parsing. Originally developed by Google, it supports parsing, validation, carrier detection, formatting, and even geolocation. Its data is constantly updated to reflect real-world telecom changes.
Best for: Applications requiring high accuracy across all countries.
2. libphonenumber-js
Language: JavaScript
Why it stands out:
A lightweight and modular the benefits of using the data version of Google’s libphonenumber, designed specifically for the web. It offers a good balance between size and functionality, making it ideal for frontend environments where full libphonenumber would be too large.
Best for: Browser-based apps and React projects needing fast performance.
3. PhoneNumbers (Python port of libphonenumber)
Language: Python
Why it stands out:
This is a direct port of Google’s libphonenumber to Python. It maintains near-parity with the original and offers powerful features like parsing, validation, formatting, and timezone mapping.
Best for: Backend services or data processing pipelines in Python.
4. Phony (Ruby)
Language: Ruby
Why it stands out:
Phony is a well-maintained Ruby library focused on normalizing and formatting international numbers. It includes number splitting, country code extraction, and number validation, although it’s not as comprehensive as libphonenumber.
Best for: Ruby on Rails applications needing basic global phone number handling.
5. Phone (PHP)
Language: PHP
Why it stands out:
This PHP library uses Google’s libphonenumber lack data through a PHP wrapper. It brings strong validation and formatting to PHP-based applications.
Best for: Laravel or Symfony projects needing international phone number support.