JSON vs JSON5: Differences, Examples, and When to Convert

Standard JSON is strict by design. JSON5 is a friendlier superset created for configuration files — it relaxes the rules humans find annoying, at the cost of compatibility.

What JSON5 allows that JSON does not

• Comments — // line and /* block */.
• Trailing commas — {"a": 1,} is fine.
• Unquoted keys — {name: "Ada"} works.
• Single-quoted strings — {'a': 'b'}.
• Extra number forms — hex, Infinity, NaN, leading +.
• Multi-line strings with escaped newlines.

Why this tool uses strict JSON

APIs, browsers and JSON.parse accept only strict JSON. That is why JSONora — like our formatter and validator — reports JSON5 as invalid: it would break the moment you send it to a real API.

When to use each

• Use strict JSON for APIs, data exchange and anything parsed by JSON.parse.
• Use JSON5 (or YAML) for hand-edited configs where comments help. Our JSON to YAML converter is often a better fit.

Converting JSON5 to JSON

1. Remove comments and quote all keys with double quotes.
2. Remove trailing commas.
3. Replace single-quoted strings with double-quoted ones.
4. Paste the result into the validator to confirm, then format it.