jless vs JSON OS

jless is a free command-line viewer for reading and exploring JSON and YAML on macOS and Linux. It formats JSON with indentation and syntax highlighting, and lets users open or close objects and arrays using vim-inspired commands. Search supports both full-text and regular-expression queries. jless reads files or standard input, including newline-delimited JSON; it can detect YAML from a file extension or read it with the --yaml flag. YAML comments and anchors are not shown. Users can copy values, keys, and paths to the system clipboard, or print them in the terminal, including a jq-style path for the focused node. It does not provide jq querying. Data mode gives a streamlined view, while line mode shows formatted JSON. Installation choices include Homebrew, MacPorts, Linux package managers, Cargo, downloadable binaries, and building from source with Rust. The project is MIT-licensed and available as a standalone binary. Its maker suggests it for exploring external APIs or debugging request payloads.

JSON OS is a free, browser-based workbench that pairs a JSON editor with Markdown Studio, a Markdown previewer. The maker says it needs no signup and that processing runs locally in a Web Worker, with data stored in IndexedDB and nothing leaving the device. The JSON workspace supports up to three panes and can open or accept dropped files. Data can be viewed and edited as a tree, text or table, with table columns switched independently. The editor formats, beautifies, minifies and sorts JSON keys, validates against JSON Schema with Ajv format checks, and repairs malformed input such as smart quotes, comments and unclosed brackets. It compares two documents side by side and supports MongoDB-style filters; JSON arrays can be exported to CSV with a UTF-8 BOM. Markdown Studio supports GitHub-Flavored Markdown, Mermaid, KaTeX, highlighted code and embeds from services including YouTube, Vimeo and GitHub Gist. It sanitizes rendered HTML through DOMPurify, stripping scripts and untrusted iframes. Markdown can be exported as source, copied as rendered HTML or downloaded as standalone HTML.