{ } JSON Viewer

JSON vs XML

Both store and exchange structured data, but they're suited to different jobs. JSON is the default for web APIs and JavaScript; XML still dominates documents, legacy enterprise systems, and config where structure and validation matter most.

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The same data, both ways

// JSON
{ "user": { "name": "Ada", "admin": true } }

<!-- XML -->
<user>
  <name>Ada</name>
  <admin>true</admin>
</user>

Side by side

	JSON	XML
Verbosity	Compact	More verbose (closing tags)
Data types	Strings, numbers, booleans, null, arrays, objects	Everything is text (types via schema)
Comments	No	Yes
Attributes	No (keys only)	Yes (<a id="1">)
Schema / validation	JSON Schema	XSD, DTD (mature)
Parse in JS	Native JSON.parse	DOMParser / libraries
Best for	Web/mobile APIs, config, JS	Documents, SOAP, RSS, office formats, legacy

When to use which

• Use JSON for almost any new web or mobile API, app config, and anything JavaScript touches — it's lighter and parses natively.
• Use XML when you need attributes, comments, mixed content (text + markup), mature schema validation, or you're integrating with systems that require it (SOAP, many enterprise/government and document formats).

Converting between them

Need to move data across? Use the free JSON → XML converter, or explore and validate a JSON document first in the JSON viewer. To compare JSON with YAML instead, see JSON → YAML.

Open the JSON → XML converter →