Viewer for huge JSON files on Windows

Question

I am looking for a JSON viewer for Windows that can:

• open decently large files (e.g. > 10 MB), unlike JSONViewer Notepad++ plugin (lags for ever), JSON Editor Eclipse Plugin (take over 1 minute to generate the treeview for a 500 KB JSON file) and Json Tools Eclipse Plugin (no outline generated if file is more than a few MBs but other great and fast)
• has a decently responsive UI, unlike JSON Viewer
• can collapse/expand a given level (treeview / outline)
• works off-line

Ideally:

• tabs
• gratis
• can edit JSON data
• displays the filename somewhere, unlike JSON Viewer
• provide some statistics on the JSON content

Example of large JSON file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/2a6ytj5wa1zlm1c/tracker004_track_2015-08-28_22-22-01-238000.json?dl=0

Answer 1

I have written Huge JSON viewer based on JSON.NET, one of the fastest JSON frameworks. It matches the requirements as follows:

• open decently large files: it can open the 1.44 GB example file without crashing in ~ 2:45 minutes on my machine (Intel Core i7, 16 GB RAM, SSD). To do that, the OS must be 64 bit. A progress bar is shown
• has a decently responsive UI: I use a commercial tree view from DevExpress which I hope is optimized very well.
• can collapse/expand a given level: it is a full tree view and can expand/collapse any nodes. It has a feature to expand to a given level
• works off-line: it's a Windows desktop application. Needs .NET
• provide some statistics on the JSON content: some. Can definitely be improved.
• tabs: yes.
• gratis: yes. MIT license, but closed source.
• displays the filename somewhere: yes, in the tab

The only thing it can definitely not (but was optional):

• "can edit JSON data"

Additional features:

• search capability
• performance warning when memory swapping to disk is expected

System requirements:

• Windows 7 SP1 or higher, x64 bit recommended
• Physical RAM roughly 7 times the file size to be opened
• .NET 4.5

Watch out the list of known issues until it's out of beta phase.

Screenshots:

Download (including portable version): https://github.com/WelliSolutions/HugeJsonViewer#releases

Answer 2

I'm using JSONedit, typically with 1-2MB of text. Largest data sets I've tested were around 50MB and it's annoyingly slow with loading it and peak RAM usage reaches few hundreds MB - there is definitely room for improvement, but it's at least order of magnitude better than browser-based editors I've tested. It seems to meet most of your requirements except tabs and I don't know what you mean by statistics - JSONedit can count nodes by type or count total length of strings for memory usage estimation for DOM-style parsers, maybe this is sufficient).

It can show node statistics:

Answer 3

Disclaimer: I'm the author of JSONBuddy.

JSONBuddy can do all of this for you and even more:

1. Can open and edit very large JSON and text data (please use the Plus edition if you need to edit multi-GB text files).
2. Grid view in addition to the standard text editor.
3. Built-in JSON validator and syntax-checking.
4. Entry-helpers based on schema context.
5. A JSON schema analyzer.

Those are the points related to this posting. Besides that, JSONBuddy also offers additional functionality like CSV and XML to JSON conversions, batch validation or JSON schema documentation.

Answer 4

In case I want to open truly very large files (logs from application for example), then my preferred solution is to load this file into the local mongo database (it is for free) and then use some Mongo GUI (3T Studio/Mongo DBCompass/… for free as well). The benefits against other solutions (like HugeJsonViewer) is that you are definitely not restricted by file size (just size of your disk) and you have also structured query language for to asking for data. Fact is that a large JSON query is a just a database file.

1. gratis
2. unlimited file size : just size of disk is limit
3. Excellent GUI : not just one 3T Studio/Mongo DBCompass/... Support for those who want to pay
4. structured query language : that's what I'm really appreciated
5. tabs: yes.
6. Licence possible : you can buy a licence in case you want more a more
7. ...

Answer 5

You can use JSToolNpp:

• open source (GPL 2.0)
• javascript plugin for Notepad++ (formerly JSMinNpp)
• can open file up to 100 MB (I haven't tried larger yet)
• has a responsive UI
• can collapse/expand a given level (treeview / outline)

Answer 6

I am not using Windows but this method is cross platform and meets your basic criteria, using Node.js and Google Chrome’s DevTools.

• I use this to view JSON files that are 100’s of MBs large.
• UI is quick and responsive.
• Uses a treeview
• Works offline
• Free

How to use it:

1. Run Node.js with --inspect flag:

   > node --inspect
   Debugger listening on ws://127.0.0.1:9229/4c1a18f5-f845-47ea-bd18-92c993d61891
   For help, see: https://nodejs.org/en/docs/inspector
   

2. Use Google Chrome’s DevTools to connect to the Node.js process above (using chrome://inspect/).

   See: https://nodejs.org/en/docs/inspector

3. Type in require('./path/to/json.json') to view it.

   

Answer 7

"Dadroit is a brilliant tool that treats JSON as a data format, not a plain text. It provides you a quick outline view with the help of tree representation of JSON data from root to last nodes. So you can browse and query JSON like an enterprise DBMS."

FREE FOR NO COMMERCIAL USE

Answer 8

I think you can use MiTec JSON Viewer. Here’re the details regarding this tool.

Description:
MiTeC JSON Viewer is free JSON viewer software, which you can use to load, view and edits multiple JSON files at a time. It has an attractive and well-organized interface that comes fully loaded with various options to view a file both in Tree and Text mode. You can switch between them with Tree and Source options at the bottom of the interface.

Features:

• Upload data
  • From file: yes
  • Copy Paste: no
  • From URL: no
• Data Structure Show Up
  • Tree Structure: yes
  • Text Mode: yes
• Minimization / Minify: yes
• Search Functionality: yes
• Formatting and Validating JSON data: yes
• Show Array Index: yes
• Show JS type: no
• Price: Free

Answer 9

I've created a web app (Cluria) for viewing very large JSON files that loads very fast. To support this, it only renders a preview of the file, not the entire data. This is useful if you just want to view the file (e.g. to understand its general structure) and data types without necessarily seeing the full data.

If this is your use case, this can be very useful since it can preview giant JSON files in just a few seconds.

Example using the dev JSON file from SQuAD: https://rajpurkar.github.io/SQuAD-explorer/dataset/dev-v2.0.json

It's entirely free to use and any feedback would be appreciated as its still in beta mode :)

Link: http://www.cluria.com