JSON
JavaScript Object Notation
Adopt
Formal standard
IETF RFC 8259 / ECMA-404
Since 2001
Judgement: Adopt
Universal payload format; not a choice.
Standard text-based format for structured data. Pairs naturally with JSON Schema, OpenAPI, and AsyncAPI.
In a lake, line-delimited JSON (NDJSON / JSONL) is the typical landing format before transformation into columnar formats like Parquet.
At a glance
- Category
- File Formats
- Governance
- IETF RFC 8259 / ECMA-404
- Status
- Stable; ubiquitous
- First released
- 2001
Links
Related standards
Other standards in File Formats.
- AVRO — Apache Avro
- CSV — Comma-Separated Values (RFC 4180)
- PARQUET — Apache Parquet
- XML — Extensible Markup Language
- YAML — YAML Ain't Markup Language
- ORC — Apache ORC (Optimized Row Columnar)
- Lance
See JSON in context
Open the interactive Data Landscape to compare JSON against every other open standard, or grab the raw JSON. Spotted something wrong? Open an issue.