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I am running a world targeted website where people from all over the world visit. The database contains time in International Date Line West format. I am taking the user time zone using JavaScript and converting the time in the database to user's time and then showing on the page. I want to ask that is International Date Line West is correct format for world level website? Or setting to UTC or GMT will be better? And what is the difference between UTC and GMT and International Date Line West? Are these three same? Finally what time should I set onto my server that will be converted using offset of timezone of user?
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Prior to 1972, this time was called Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) but is now referred to as Coordinated Universal Time or Universal Time Coordinated (UTC). It is a coordinated time scale, maintained by the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM). It is also known as "Z time" or "Zulu Time".
Although there was GMT, a committee at the United Nations officially adopted UTC as a standard. This is because it is more accurate than GMT for setting clocks. Coordinated Universal Time and Greenwich Mean Time is used interchangeably; that's why knowing their difference is a must, especially when dealing with time.
Although GMT and UTC share the same current time in practice, there is a basic difference between the two: GMT is a time zone officially used in some European and African countries. The time can be displayed using both the 24-hour format (0 - 24) or the 12-hour format (1 - 12 am/pm).
The time zone using UTC is sometimes denoted UTC±00:00 or by the letter Z—a reference to the equivalent nautical time zone (GMT), which has been denoted by a Z since about 1950.
UTC is effectively the new name for GMT. It has very minor differences, but none that will impact you in that scenario.
Servy's comment is completely wrong saying GMT includes daylight savings. That's a different timezone called BST that the UK moves to from GMT over summer.
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