Free Rest API to retrieve current datetime as string (timezone irrelevant)

If you're using Rails, you can just make an empty file in the public folder and use ajax to get that. Then parse the headers for the Date header. Files in the Public folder bypass the Rails stack, and so have lower latency.

TimezoneDb provides a free API: http://timezonedb.com/api

GenoNames also has a RESTful API available to get the current time for a given location: http://www.geonames.org/export/ws-overview.html.

You can use Greenwich, UK if you'd like GMT.

This API gives you the current time and several formats in JSON - https://market.mashape.com/parsify/format#time. Here's a sample response:

{
  "time": {
    "daysInMonth": 31,
    "millisecond": 283,
    "second": 42,
    "minute": 55,
    "hour": 1,
    "date": 6,
    "day": 3,
    "week": 10,
    "month": 2,
    "year": 2013,
    "zone": "+0000"
  },
  "formatted": {
    "weekday": "Wednesday",
    "month": "March",
    "ago": "a few seconds",
    "calendar": "Today at 1:55 AM",
    "generic": "2013-03-06T01:55:42+00:00",
    "time": "1:55 AM",
    "short": "03/06/2013",
    "slim": "3/6/2013",
    "hand": "Mar 6 2013",
    "handTime": "Mar 6 2013 1:55 AM",
    "longhand": "March 6 2013",
    "longhandTime": "March 6 2013 1:55 AM",
    "full": "Wednesday, March 6 2013 1:55 AM",
    "fullSlim": "Wed, Mar 6 2013 1:55 AM"
  },
  "array": [
    2013,
    2,
    6,
    1,
    55,
    42,
    283
  ],
  "offset": 1362534942283,
  "unix": 1362534942,
  "utc": "2013-03-06T01:55:42.283Z",
  "valid": true,
  "integer": false,
  "zone": 0
}