JSON vs XML

In this guide, we will learn the differences and similarities between JSON and XML.

Before we see the differences between XML and JSON, lets see the example of a JSON file and the same data in XML file.

JSON Example

A simple example of a student array data in JSON format.

{"student":[  
    {"name":"Steve", "nickname":"Stevie"},  
    {"name":"Chaitanya", "nickname":"Chetan"},  
    {"name":"Ajeet", "nickname":"Jaat"},
    {"name":"Lina", "nickname":"Lee"} 
]}

XML Example

The same above example in XML document.

  
<students>  
    <student>  
        <name>Steve</name>   
        <nickname>Stevie</nickname>  
    </student>  
    <student>  
        <name>Chaitanya</name>   
        <nickname>Chetan</nickname>  
    </student>  
    <student>  
        <name>Ajeet</name>   
        <nickname>Jaat</nickname>  
    </student> 
    <student>  
        <name>Lina</name>   
        <nickname>Lee</nickname>  
    </student> 
</students>  

JSON vs XML

SNO.	JSON (JavaScript Object Notation)	XML (eXtensible Markup Language)
1	JSON is simple and easier to read and write	XML is verbose and less readable
2	JSON doesn’t use end tag	In XML, the end tag is mandatory
3	JSON supports array thus it is easy to transfer a big chunk of homogeneous data items using JSON	XML doesn’t support array
4	JSON is easier to parse and can be parsed to ready-to-use JavaScript object	XML is difficult to parse than JSON
5	JSON is short	XML document is lengthy, verbose and redundant
6	JSON is less secure than XML	XML is more secured than JSON
7	JSON file is more readable than XML because it is short and to the point.	XML file is big and filled with user-defined tags, thus less-readable
8	JSON is data-oriented	XML is document-oriented

Similarities between JSON and XML

1. Both JSON and XML are human readable language.
2. Both JSON and XML support unicode, thus any human written language can be written in JSON and XML documents.
3. Both JSON and XML can be parsed.
4. The data in both JSON and XML can be fetched using XMLHttpRequest.