What are JSON and YAML?
JSON and YAML are two popular formats for representing structured data. JSON is compact and widely used in APIs and web applications. YAML is more human-friendly, with a clean indentation-based syntax that avoids brackets and quotes for most values — making it a popular choice for configuration files in tools like Docker, Kubernetes, GitHub Actions, and many others.
Despite their differences in appearance, both formats represent the same underlying data: objects, lists, strings, numbers, and booleans. This makes it straightforward to convert between them without losing any information.
What Does This Tool Do?
This tool converts data instantly between JSON and YAML in both directions. Paste JSON and get clean YAML output, or paste YAML and get valid JSON back. The conversion is real-time — no button needed.
How to Use This Tool
- Select the conversion direction: JSON → YAML or YAML → JSON.
- Paste your source data into the input area.
- The converted result appears immediately in the output area.
- Copy the result with the copy button.
Common Use Cases
- Moving from code to config: Convert a JSON API response to YAML to use in a configuration file.
- Working with Kubernetes or Docker: Those tools use YAML; quickly convert JSON examples found in documentation.
- Normalizing data formats: Your team uses YAML configs but receives JSON from an external service — convert on the fly.
- Editing and testing: Prefer writing in YAML for readability, then convert to JSON before sending to an API.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are all JSON types preserved when converting to YAML?
Yes. Strings, numbers, booleans, null values, arrays, and objects are all correctly represented in YAML. Comments cannot be represented in JSON, so any YAML comments are lost when converting to JSON.
Is my data private?
Completely. The conversion runs in your browser with no data sent to any server.
What happens with complex nested structures?
Both formats support deep nesting, and this tool handles it correctly. Indentation in YAML output matches the structure of the original JSON.