jsoneditoronline.org

JSON Editor Online is developed and maintained by Jos de Jong, a senior software engineer with more than 20 years of experience. The site describes him as an enthusiastic, passionate engineer, and he created the editor out of his own daily need to work with JSON-based APIs and databases as a full-stack engineer.

What the Site Says About the Developer

The tool's About section is the primary source for this information. It presents Jos de Jong as the sole named developer and maintainer, and frames the project's origin as a personal solution to a recurring work problem rather than a commercial product launch.

Why the Background Matters for Users

The developer's background is relevant if you are deciding whether to trust the tool with your data or to rely on it in a workflow.

• Domain fit: The editor was built by someone who used JSON APIs and databases daily as a full-stack engineer, which aligns with the tool's feature set — editing, formatting, comparing, querying, transforming, and validating JSON.
• Longevity signal: The site notes the tool is "the original and most copied JSON Editor on the web" and reports steady growth in usage over the past year. The current version listed is 7.15.1.
• Active maintenance: Recent updates include "Expand All" and "Collapse All" buttons in text mode (2025-09-24) and preserving undo/redo history when switching between text, tree, and table modes (2024-11-27). These are concrete signs of ongoing development rather than an abandoned project.

Practical Takeaway

If your question is simply "who makes this tool," the answer is one named engineer with two decades of experience, building it from his own JSON workflow needs. For a fuller trust assessment, pair that with the site's own data policy and FAQ pages, and check the pricing page if you need to know which features sit behind a subscription — the site links to a Pricing page but does not state terms in the material summarized here.

JSON Editor Online is described on its own site as “completely free,” and you can use the editor without reading any claim that an account is required. The site also links to a separate Pricing page, which indicates optional paid plans exist alongside the free tool. On data handling, the site provides a Data policy page but the excerpt available here does not spell out its terms, so treat “where my JSON goes” as something to verify on that page before pasting sensitive data. An offline editor is also offered, which is the safer route when you do not want to send data to a web service at all.

What “free” covers

The site’s About section states the tool is “completely free” and lists the full feature set without marking any of it as paid-only:

• Online JSON editor and viewer
• Text mode, tree mode, and table mode
• Formatter and beautifier
• Query and transform
• Compare and repair
• JSON Schema validation
• Load, save, and share JSON online
• JSON ↔ CSV conversion
• Processing large JSON files
• Offline JSON editor

Because a Pricing page exists, the accurate reading is: the core editor is free, and paid plans are a separate, optional layer. The available material does not list prices or state what a subscription adds, so check the Pricing page directly if you need those details.

Practical ways to keep your data local

If your JSON contains credentials, personal data, or anything you would not paste into a chat window, the site itself gives you two lower-exposure options:

1. Use the offline JSON editor. The feature list includes an offline editor, so you can work without routing documents through the website.
2. Read the Data policy first. The site has a dedicated Data policy section; confirm what is stored, for how long, and whether documents are saved server-side before using “save and share” features.

A useful rule of thumb: formatting, validating, and comparing a sample payload in the browser is low risk; using the share feature on a production config file is a decision that should follow the data policy, not precede it.

A concrete scenario

Suppose you need to debug a 2 MB API response with deeply nested objects. Open the document in tree mode to collapse everything and expand only the branch you care about, or switch to text mode and use the newer “Expand All” / “Collapse All” buttons (added 2025-09-24) to navigate large documents. If the payload is a customer export, do this in the offline editor instead of the hosted one, and skip the share link entirely.

What to check before relying on it

Bottom line

For everyday formatting, validation, comparison, and querying, JSON Editor Online is a free, no-friction choice, and its mode-switching now preserves undo/redo history (changed 2024-11-27), which matters during long editing sessions. For anything sensitive, decide based on the Data policy or move to the offline editor — the free price tag says nothing about how your data is treated.

JSON Editor Online (jsoneditoronline.org) is a browser-based tool for viewing, editing, formatting, repairing, comparing, querying, transforming, validating, and sharing JSON data. It suits developers who work with JSON from APIs or databases and want one place to inspect and clean up a document without installing software. The site describes the tool as completely free and notes that it runs in the browser, so you need JavaScript enabled to use it.

What the editor actually does

The site lists these capabilities:

• View and edit JSON in text, tree, or table mode
• Format and beautify JSON
• Query and transform JSON data
• Compare two JSON documents
• Repair broken JSON
• Validate against a JSON Schema
• Load, save, and share JSON online
• Convert between JSON and CSV
• Process large JSON files
• Work offline with an offline editor

The current version listed on the site is 7.15.1.

When each mode helps

The three modes are not just cosmetic; they change how you navigate a document.

A practical workflow: paste JSON into text mode, format it, then switch to tree mode to collapse and expand sections while you inspect. According to the site's news notes, switching between text, tree, and table modes no longer resets undo/redo history, so you can change views mid-edit without losing your place.

Typical tasks and how to approach them

Formatting messy JSON. Paste the document into the editor, run the formatter/beautifier, and read the result in text or tree mode. Expected result: consistent indentation and line breaks that make structure visible.

Finding a value in a large document. Use the search box to locate the part you need, or collapse all nodes and expand only the relevant branch. This is the workflow the site highlights for large, deeply nested documents.

Checking a document against a schema. Use the JSON Schema validation feature to see whether the data conforms. This is useful before sending a payload to an API.

Comparing two versions. Load both documents and use the compare feature to see what changed, for example between an API response before and after a fix.

Repairing invalid JSON. If a document fails to parse (a missing comma or quote, for example), the repair feature attempts to fix it so you can continue editing.

Converting data. Use the JSON-to-CSV or CSV-to-JSON converters when you need to move data between a spreadsheet and an API.

Is it the right tool for you?

It fits well if you want a no-install, browser-based editor that covers formatting, validation, comparison, and conversion in one place, and you are comfortable enabling JavaScript. It is aimed at frontend and backend developers working with JSON daily, and the site says it is free to use.

Consider alternatives if you need a fully offline desktop application with no browser dependency (though the site does offer an offline editor), or if your workflow is built around a specific IDE where JSON editing is already integrated.

The tool is developed and maintained by Jos de Jong, a senior software engineer, according to the site's About section.

Practical notes

• The app requires JavaScript; without it, the page will not run.
• The site has a pricing page, so check it directly if you need current details on paid options; the About text describes the tool as completely free, but confirm terms on the pricing page before relying on that for commercial use.
• For very large files, use collapse/expand and search rather than scrolling, and expect tree mode to be more manageable than raw text for navigation.

JSON Editor Online offers three editing views—text, tree, and table—and you can switch between them without losing your undo/redo history. Use text mode for raw JSON editing, tree mode for navigating deeply nested structures, and table mode for a tabular view of array-based data. The right choice depends on whether you need precise syntax control, structural navigation, or a spreadsheet-like overview.

Text Mode: Raw JSON Editing

Text mode shows your JSON as plain text in an editor. This is the view to use when you need full control over syntax—writing new JSON from scratch, pasting in a payload from an API response, or fixing a formatting problem character by character.

• Best for: authoring JSON, pasting raw data, precise edits to keys, values, and punctuation.
• What you see: the literal JSON document, including braces, brackets, commas, and quotes.
• Practical tip: text mode now includes Expand All and Collapse All buttons (added September 2025), so you can collapse the whole document and then expand only the nodes you care about—useful for large, deeply nested files.

Because text mode exposes the raw syntax, it is also where formatting and beautifying actions make the most visible difference: you can take minified JSON and reformat it into readable, indented output.

Tree Mode: Navigating Nested Structures

Tree mode renders JSON as a collapsible tree of nodes. Instead of scanning lines of text, you expand and collapse objects and arrays to drill into the parts you need.

• Best for: exploring large or deeply nested documents, understanding structure before editing, and making targeted changes without touching surrounding syntax.
• What you see: a hierarchical view where each key and value is a node you can expand or collapse.
• Why it helps: in a deeply nested document, collapsing everything and expanding only the relevant branch is far faster than scrolling through raw text. The search box can locate the part you are looking for and navigate you to it.

Tree mode is generally the safer place to make structural edits, since you are working with nodes rather than hand-editing punctuation.

Table Mode: Tabular Viewing

Table mode presents JSON data in a table layout, which suits documents whose structure maps naturally to rows and columns—typically arrays of objects with consistent fields.

• Best for: scanning many records at once, spotting patterns or outliers across entries, and getting a spreadsheet-like overview of array data.
• What you see: your data arranged in rows and columns rather than as nested text or a node tree.
• When it fits less well: heavily nested or irregular JSON does not flatten neatly into a table, so text or tree mode will usually be more informative there.

Switching Modes Without Losing History

A key behavior to know: when you switch between text, tree, and table modes, the editor no longer resets the undo/redo history (changed November 2024). Previously, switching views could wipe your history; now you can switch to another view just to inspect something and switch back without worrying about losing your undo stack.

This matters in practice. A common workflow is to edit in tree mode, switch to text mode to check the exact serialized output, then switch back—and with history preserved, that inspection step costs you nothing.

Choosing a Mode: A Quick Comparison

Practical Notes

• You can combine modes. Edit in one view, verify in another; history is preserved across switches.
• Large documents benefit from collapsing. Use Expand All / Collapse All in either text or tree mode to reduce visual noise before navigating.
• Table mode is not a universal view. If your JSON is irregular or deeply nested, expect text or tree mode to serve you better.
• The tool covers more than viewing. Beyond these three modes, JSON Editor Online also formats, repairs, compares, queries, transforms, and validates JSON, and converts between JSON and CSV.

If you are unsure where to start, open your document in tree mode to understand its shape, switch to text mode when you need to change exact syntax, and use table mode when your data is a list of similar records you want to scan side by side.

JSON Editor Online is a browser-based tool for viewing, editing, formatting, repairing, comparing, querying, transforming, validating, and sharing JSON data. It suits developers who need to inspect or clean up JSON from APIs and databases, and it covers most everyday JSON tasks in one place. The site describes the tool as "completely free," and a separate pricing page exists, so check that page if you need details on paid plans.

Core editing and viewing

The editor offers three ways to work with the same document:

• Text mode — a plain-text editor for raw JSON.
• Tree mode — a collapsible node view for navigating nested structures.
• Table mode — a tabular view for array-style data.

Switching between modes keeps the undo/redo history, so you can move to another view to inspect something without losing your edit history. In text mode, "Expand All" and "Collapse All" buttons help you navigate large, deeply nested documents: collapse everything, then expand only the nodes you need, or use the search box to jump to a part of the document.

Formatting and beautifying

The formatter and beautifier reformat JSON into a consistent, readable layout. This is the typical first step when you paste in minified or messy JSON from an API response and want to read or debug it.

Comparing and repairing

• Compare lets you diff two JSON documents to see what changed between them.
• Repair helps fix malformed JSON documents.

These are useful when you receive a broken payload or need to confirm that two versions of a config or API response match.

Querying and transforming

The query and transform features let you extract or reshape parts of a JSON document rather than editing it by hand. This fits tasks such as pulling a subset of fields out of a large response or restructuring data before using it elsewhere.

Validation

JSON Schema validation checks a document against a schema, so you can confirm the data matches an expected structure before relying on it.

Conversion and large files

• JSON to CSV and CSV to JSON converters move data between the two formats.
• The tool can process large JSON files, which matters when a document is too big to comfortably handle by hand.

Loading, saving, and sharing

You can load, save, and share JSON online through the editor, and an offline JSON editor is also available for working without a connection.

Quick reference

If your task is one of the operations above, the tool likely covers it. If you need pricing or account details, consult the site's pricing page rather than assuming the free tier covers everything.