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Dev tools · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to LCON – Ludicrously Compact Object Notation

Ludicrously Compact Object Notation. Contribute to ar-nelson/lcon development by creating an account on GitHub.

LCON is a data notation format designed for extremely compact representation of objects. It is intended for developers who need efficient serialization with minimal file size. The format prioritizes compactness above… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. LCON – Ludicrously Compact Object Notation launched in 2014; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

  1. 1

    Outlines is a Python library that focuses on text generation with large language models. Brandon and I are not LLM experts and started the project a few months ago because we wanted to understand better how the generation process works. Our original background is probabilistic, relational and symbolic programming. Recently we came up with a fast way to generate text that matches a regex (https://blog.normalcomputing.ai/posts/2023-07-27-regex-guide...). The basic idea is simple: regular expressions have an equivalent Deterministic-Finite Automaton (DFA) representation. We…

    2023 · github.com · its alternatives →

  2. 2

    Very low footprint DOM-style JSON parser written in portable ANSI C - json-parser/json-parser

    2012 · github.com · its alternatives →

  3. 3

    Meta programming utilities for C++14. Merged in matt-42/lithium - matt-42/iod

    2014 · github.com · its alternatives →

  4. 4

    CTON provides a JSON-compatible, token-efficient text representation optimized for LLM prompts. - davidesantangelo/cton

    Nov 2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  5. 5

    2014 · journal.paul.querna.org · its alternatives →

  6. 6

    The secure data format for a modern world

    2020 · concise-encoding.org · its alternatives →

  7. 7

    JSON extended with pure functions. Contribute to VictorTaelin/LJSON development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2015 · github.com · its alternatives →

  8. 8KA
  9. 9

    the JS/Node.JS library for encoding complex and unconventional data structures. Support for BigInts, TypedArrays, null, undefined, and Symbol. Multiple flavors available. - DO-SAY-GO/WeirdJSON

    2020 · github.com · its alternatives →

  10. 10
    OK JSON▲113

    Format and view JSON with native Mac app

    2021 · okjson.app · its alternatives →

  11. 11
    OK JSON▲104

    The ultimate JSON formatter for your Mac

    2023 · okjson.app · its alternatives →

  12. 12

    Some time ago, I was implementing saves for my LOVE2D game. I wanted to do a full dump of the game state -- which included closures (AI), complex graphs, sets with tables as keys and also fundamentally non-serializable data (coroutines and userdata), that require user-defined serialization/deserialization logic. I went through every Lua serialization library -- none covered all data types/cases. So I wrote my own. It is a polished version, thoroughly annotated, tested and documented. It is made to be as functional and customizable as possible (or at least I did everything I could…

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  13. 13

    Hey folks, I just wanted to share a quick script I threw together called notational ls. One of the big problems of any code base (or any filesystem) is that it's hard to tell what's what - folder and file names often trade brevity for clarity. So I thought about a version of `ls` that works like this: > nls web: Where python web server files are stored ad_hoc: One time scripts ios: Our IOS code images Adding descriptions is really easy too: > nls images Images SHARED between both ios and web web: Where python web server files are stored ad_hoc: One time scripts ios: Our IOS code…

    2011 · github.com · its alternatives →

  14. 14

    Stop wasting money on JSON. Save 50%+ tokens on your LLMs

    Aug 2026 · zeon-eight.vercel.app · its alternatives →

  15. 15

    ISON (Interchange Simple Object Notation) - a data format optimized for LLMs and Agentic AI. The problem: JSON wastes tokens. Curly braces, quotes, colons, commas - all eat into your context window. ISON uses tabular patterns that LLMs already understand from training data: JSON (87 tokens): { "users": [ {"id": 1, "name": "Alice", "email": "[email protected]"}, {"id": 2, "name": "Bob", "email": "[email protected]"} ] } ISON (34 tokens): table.users id:int name:string email 1 Alice [email protected] 2 Bob [email protected] Features: - 30-70% token reduction - Type annotations - References between…

    Dec 2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  16. 16MA
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  18. 18

    Wrote this to learn more about the `chumsky` parser combinator library, rustyline, and the `ariadne` error reporting crate. Such a nice DX combo for writing new languages. Still a work in progress, but I thought I'd share :)

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  19. 19PL
  20. 20

    A minimalist type-inferred programming language with procedural macro support - murisi/L2

    2017 · github.com · its alternatives →

  21. 21

    Hi HN ! I'm Alex, a tech enthusiast. I'm excited to show you Paradict (https://github.com/pyrustic/paradict), my solution for streamable multi-format serialization. Although JSON, YAML, and TOML are all human-readable, they serve different purposes. For example, TOML is specifically designed for configuration files while JSON is used as a data interchange format. Sometimes an initiative to create a binary version of JSON arises and as far as I know, it ends with an unidirectional mapping of datatypes. There is no silver bullet, yet one coherent solution built from scratch…

    2023 · github.com · its alternatives →

  22. 22

    the JS/Node.JS library for encoding complex and unconventional data structures. Support for BigInts, TypedArrays, null, undefined, and Symbol. Multiple flavors available. - DO-SAY-GO/WeirdJSON

    2022 · github.com · its alternatives →

  23. 23

    A lightweight programming language built with Go. Contribute to confh/Tiny development by creating an account on GitHub.

    Jun 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  24. 24

    Hi friends, I'm really excited to introduce KSON, which just entered public beta! Anywhere a human is reading or editing YAML/JSON/TOML, KSON may be used as a more effective interface on that data. If you are such a human, we invite you to participate in this beta. tl;dr Check out the website [1], play with the online playground [2], install the library for your programming language [3], edit in your favorite editor [4], discuss and give feedback [5], contribute to the project [6]. (A personal note about this project: I love software. Machines made of words! Such a wonder. KSON…

    2025 · kson.org · its alternatives →

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Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →