JSONata

What hackers pick instead

• GraphQLRecommended for letting clients request exactly the nested data they need in one call, with typed schemas and generated clients. Critics often say it adds complexity and is overused where simpler APIs would do.52recommend
• PRQLA cleaner, pipelined query language that extends SQL without replacing it, starting with FROM so autocomplete and reading the query both get easier.15recommend
• PrelaRecommended for a simpler SQL-like query semantics with no NULLs and direct control over the query plan; a critic finds it harder to read than SQL.5recommend
• PRQLPeople recommend PRQL as a pipelined alternative to SQL, praising it as a nice language with a pleasant interface to use.5recommend

Every quote

The 12 most detailed of 12 comments. Each links to the original.

1. due to its terseness and expressiveness, which is a great combination for AI generated queries

   Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “We Rewrote JSONata with AI in a Day, Saved $500K/Year”

2. it is a fantastic and expressive framework with a very detailed spec

   Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “We Rewrote JSONata with AI in a Day, Saved $500K/Year”

3. passes the full set of tests and is safe

   Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “We Rewrote JSONata with AI in a Day, Saved $500K/Year”

4. Likely, had we known what it would evolve into, we would have decided on a different solution (perhaps not JSONata at all, for example).

   Criticizes · Mar 2026 · in “We Rewrote JSONata with AI in a Day, Saved $500K/Year”

5. a very very simple JSON expression language to become a 500k/year cost burden

   Criticizes · Mar 2026 · in “We Rewrote JSONata with AI in a Day, Saved $500K/Year”

6. they fixed their existing bad technology choice

   Criticizes · Mar 2026 · in “We Rewrote JSONata with AI in a Day, Saved $500K/Year”

7. The AI generated code can still introduce subtle bugs that lead to incorrect behaviour.

   Mixed · Mar 2026 · in “We Rewrote JSONata with AI in a Day, Saved $500K/Year”

8. The state machines use JSONata for the sweet, sweet power vs JSONPath.

   Recommends · Jul 2026 · in “Htmx 4.0, the first JavaScript library to release exclusively on the Game Boy”

9. JSONata is definitely a big part of that

   Recommends · Nov 2025 · in “Moving from Serverless to Functionless”

10. Jsonata should have been written in C so anyone could link to it and keep the parser resident in memory

    Criticizes · Mar 2026 · in “We Rewrote JSONata with AI in a Day, Saved $500K/Year”

11. after finding issues in the jsonata-go repo

    Criticizes · Mar 2026 · in “We Rewrote JSONata with AI in a Day, Saved $500K/Year”

12. JSONata is too tied to the language.

    Criticizes · Mar 2026 · in “We Rewrote JSONata with AI in a Day, Saved $500K/Year”