# gron

6 Hacker News commenters recommended gron and 0 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 5 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Free command-line tool that flattens JSON into greppable lines, which people recommend for viewing JSON and as a possible replacement for jq.

## Why people recommend it

- Flattens and views JSON (1 comments): "Gron for flattening and viewing JSON" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49329466))
- Can replace jq in many cases (1 comments): "I think it can replace jq in a lot of cases" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45844870))
- Good name and output (1 comments): "Gron is a great name and the output looks pretty good" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46594043))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [fzf](https://hackerapproved.com/p/fzf.md): 78 recommend
- [jq](https://hackerapproved.com/p/jq.md): 75 recommend
- [grep](https://hackerapproved.com/p/grep.md): 65 recommend
- [Atuin](https://hackerapproved.com/p/atuin.md): 63 recommend
- [GitHub CLI](https://hackerapproved.com/p/github-cli.md): 49 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "gron", https://hackerapproved.com/p/gron/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).