# MAML

5 Hacker News commenters recommended MAML and 4 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 3 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** JSON-style config language with comments, multiline strings and optional commas, plus a spec. Critics say it's too small an improvement over JSON.

## Why people recommend it

- Human-friendly take on JSON (2 comments): "I personally think the best is one of the humanized json ones like https://maml.dev/" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48243592)) "everything that's good about JSON, plus everything fixed for human writing" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45957051))

## What people warn about

- Just JSON with extra features (2 comments): "It's yet another JSON with comments, multiline strings, and optional commas. It's the most boring part of the page." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45956933)) "It is yet another JSON with comments, multiline strings, and optional commas." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45957101))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [CUE](https://hackerapproved.com/p/cue.md): 29 recommend
- [TOML](https://hackerapproved.com/p/toml.md): 19 recommend
- [Jsonnet](https://hackerapproved.com/p/jsonnet.md): 12 recommend
- [HCL](https://hackerapproved.com/p/hcl.md): 10 recommend
- [Dhall](https://hackerapproved.com/p/dhall.md): 9 recommend

## Cite as

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