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Boon and Groovy 2.3 provide the fastest JSON parser on the JVM.

Jackson is consistently faster than GSON and JSONSmart. Boon JSON parser and the new Groovy 2.3 JSON parser are faster than Jackson. They are faster with InputStream, Reader, reading files, byte[], and char[] and String.

Groovy JSON support and the Boon JSON parser are up to 3x to 5x faster than Jackson at parsing JSON from String and char[], and 2x to 4x faster at parsing byte[].

Groovy JSON support and Boon JSON support are also faster than Jackson at encoding JSON strings. Boon is faster than Jackson at serializing/de-serializing Java instances to/fro JSON. The core of the Boon JSON parser has been forked into Groovy 2.3 (now in Beta). In the process Boon JSON support was improved and further enhanced. Groovy and Boon JSON parsers speeds are equivalent. Groovy now has the fastest JSON parser on the JVM.

The new Groovy JSON parser based on Boon JSON parser is 20x faster than the previous Groovy JSON parser circa Groovy 2.2.

If you are using Groovy, just upgrade to Groovy 2.3 and should see the speedup. If you are using Java and you can't or wont use Groovy then follow this guide 10 minutes guide to using Boon JSON support (Boon is a Java lib). You can also use Boon with Groovy or Scala or ... :)

See the full benchmarks at Boon JSON Parser versus Jackson with source code.

Java Boon/Groovy vs Jackson - JSON Benchmarks

Boon comes with a very fast JSON parser which has now been ported / forked into Groovy 2.3.

JSON Benchmarks

We used JMH which is what OpenJDK uses. We used the json files from json.org for parsing.

JMH is a Java harness for building, running, and analyzing nano/micro/milli/macro benchmarks written in Java and other languages targeting the JVM.

JMH is Maven-driven, hence having Maven installed will bring the best experience. Also, the working JDK installation should be available to build the project, the build will require the JAVA_HOME set to the correct JDK location.

Environment

OSX MacBook Pro, JDK 1.7, 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD drive.

Summary

Jackson is consistently faster than GSON and JSONSmart.

Boon JSON parser is faster than Jackson with Reader, reading files, byte[], and char[] and String.

Boon is 3x to 5x faster than Jackson at parsing JSON from String and char[], and 2x to 4x faster at parsing byte[].

Boon and Jackson speeds are much closer with InputStream based parsing. Boon is usually faster at InputStream, but the margins are much smaller.

Boon and Jackson are close at handling InputStream if the JSON stream is small. Once the JSON stream gets over 1KB to 2KB, Boon wins consistently.

Boon is faster at encoding JSON strings, and serializing/de-serializing Java instances to/from JSON than Jackson.

Quick FAQ

Why don't you test GSON and JSONSmart?

Jackson is faster than GSON and JSONSmart. We have tests for all four. We only included the tests for Jackson because Jackson is faster than the other two. Anyone can download the benchmark and run all of the tests.

Why don't you test Jackson AST?

We do. We see no real difference between readTree and readValue. We left out AST because it is redundant. The tests are still there and easy to run. I find AST +/- 5% of non AST.

Who wrote the benchmarks?

They first version was written by Stephane Landelle of Gatling fame (Gatling is the best stress test tool on the JVM). Later they were added to by Andrey Bloschetsov for Groovy serialization. Rick Hightower added new tests as well.

Relationship to Groovy JSON parser for 2.3?

Andrey Bloschetsov and Rick Hightower, with the help of the Groovy lead developers, took the Boon JSON Parser and forked it into Groovy 2.3 which is in BETA. Andrey started looking into JSON speed up for serialization and Guillaume Laforge drafted Rick Hightower who kept bragging about his fast JSON parser on Facebook.

We did this mainly for parsing, but we also improved the JSON serialization speed.

Boon and Groovy parsing are unsurprisingly very comparable.

Groovy JSON parsing is a bit faster in a few use cases, and Boon parser is a bit faster in a few uses cases, but mostly they are neck in neck. Currently they are largely the same so you can expect similar results from Groovy.

Boon JSON de-serialization (from JSON into instances of Classes) is still quite a bit faster than Groovy. This will change in Groovy 2.4 or 2.5.

The new Groovy JSON parser based on Boon is 20x faster than the Groovy 2.2 parser. And the new Groovy Parser is faster than any main stream JSON parser on the JVM.

JSON

Most JSON samples are taken from json.org sample files. The idea was to be fair.

See JSON Samples from JSON.org

InputStream Parsing

Boon parsing is the weakest with InputStreams. Boon and Jackson are the closest in performance with InputStream parsing.

Run JMH as follows:

 java -jar target/microbenchmarks.jar ... -wi 2 -i 3 -f 2 -t 16

The above does Two warm-ups. Two forks. 16 threads. Three iterations. Jackson and Boon are completely warmed up after the first iteration. Running it longer does not help.

(Later we add more warm-ups.)

Boon.

privateObjectparse(InputStreaminputStream)throwsException{
returnparser.parse(inputStream);
}

Jackson.

privateObjectparse(InputStreaminputStream)throwsException{

returnJACKSON_MAPPER.readValue(inputStream,Map.class);
}

InputStream actionLabel.json 872 bytes

Benchmark                                                    Mode Thr     Count  Sec         Mean   Mean error    Units
i.g.j.inputStream.MainBoonBenchmark.actionLabel             thrpt  16         6    1   866021.511   152818.015    ops/s
i.g.j.inputStream.MainJacksonObjectBenchmark.actionLabel    thrpt  16         6    1   662051.786    70960.055    ops/s

Boon is faster.

InputStream citm_catalog.json 1.7 MB (1,700,000 bytes)

i.g.j.inputStream.MainBoonBenchmark.citmCatalog             thrpt  16         6    1      997.894      106.665    ops/s
i.g.j.inputStream.MainJacksonObjectBenchmark.citmCatalog    thrpt  16         6    1      464.647       82.287    ops/s

Boon is a lot faster.

InputStream medium.json 2 KB (2,000 bytes)

i.g.j.inputStream.MainBoonBenchmark.medium                  thrpt  16         6    1   729649.386    32040.721    ops/s
i.g.j.inputStream.MainJacksonObjectBenchmark.medium         thrpt  16         6    1   419224.947    21098.385    ops/s

Boon wins.

InputStream menu.json 256 bytes

i.g.j.inputStream.MainJacksonObjectBenchmark.menu           thrpt  16         6    1  1985725.125   181813.950    ops/s
i.g.j.inputStream.MainBoonBenchmark.menu                    thrpt  16         6    1  1505494.119    24945.816    ops/s

Jackson wins. (Can't win them all.) For this small of a payload you might need to tweak the default buffer sizes for Boon.

InputStream sgml.json 705 bytes

i.g.j.inputStream.MainBoonBenchmark.sgml                    thrpt  16         6    1  1350396.608    31969.601    ops/s
i.g.j.inputStream.MainJacksonObjectBenchmark.sgml           thrpt  16         6    1  1209915.253   122783.831    ops/s

Boon barely wins.

InputStream webxml.json 4K bytes

i.g.j.inputStream.MainBoonBenchmark.webxml                  thrpt  16         6    1   431055.661    31544.139    ops/s
i.g.j.inputStream.MainJacksonObjectBenchmark.webxml         thrpt  16         6    1   189635.644   104334.060    ops/s

Boon wins by a large margin.

InputStream widget.json 761 bytes

i.g.j.inputStream.MainBoonBenchmark.widget                  thrpt  16         6    1  1066325.400   108550.520    ops/s
i.g.j.inputStream.MainJacksonObjectBenchmark.widget         thrpt  16         6    1   699439.433   130830.543    ops/s

Boon wins by a large margin.

InputStream JSON Parsing Jackson vs. Boon

Higher is better. 100 represents 100% of the fastest.

Boon wins 6 out of 7, and when it wins the margins are higher.

Caveat

Boon JSON parser is a parser optimized for REST and websocket style services.

Boon JSON parser is optimized to work in a reactive style environment like Akka, Vert.x, etc. Boon JSON parser would work well with MessageDrivenBeans (EJB or Spring).

For some use cases it runs stateless faster than Jackson runs with shared buffers.

Jackson can handle very large JSON files and very large JSON streams. This support was added to Boon JSON as part of the fork/port to Groovy JSON. With larger files the speeds are much more equivalent, and in fact Jackson might be 10% faster in some cases and Groovy/Boon 10% faster in other cases.

Benchmark first. Don't assume.

It would take some extra effort to get superior results in a Servlet environment (it can be done). Framework providers like Grails could include fast Groovy based parsing with minimal impact on web developers.

Jackson is mature and solid. Don't assume ripping out Jackson for Boon will buy you anything. Jackson has tooling that makes it work really well in a Java EE environment, and is more fool proof.

Jackson is hands down the most popular JSON Java framework in the Java ecosystem. You can find it everywhere from Vertx.io to ElasticSearch to just about every JAX-RS implementation on the planet to Spring. If you are doing or have done JSON with Java then you have used Jackson either directly or indirectly. It is well designed, full of features and very fast.

File system read

Both Boon and Jackson have the ability to read straight from the file system. It seems Jackson needed more warm-ups so we added them. We don't think non-warmed up code proves anything. Both Jackson and Boon were all warmed-up after three warm-ups.

 java -jar target/microbenchmarks.jar ".*file.*"  -wi 3 -i 3 -f 2 -t 16

Jackson File.

privateObjectparse(StringfileName)throwsException{
returnJACKSON_MAPPER.readTree(newFile(fileName));
}

Boon File.

privateObjectparse(StringfileName)throwsException{
returnparser.parseFile(Map.class,fileName);
}

File actionLabel.json 872 bytes

i.g.j.f.BoonBenchMark.actionLabel          thrpt  16         6    1   253893.017    14314.289    ops/s
i.g.j.f.JacksonASTBenchmark.actionLabel    thrpt  16         6    1   231613.819    25364.317    ops/s

Call it a tie. Boon barely wins.

File citm_catalog.json 1.7 MB (1,700,000 bytes)

i.g.j.f.BoonBenchMark.citmCatalog          thrpt  16         6    1      862.778      106.362    ops/s
i.g.j.f.JacksonASTBenchmark.citmCatalog    thrpt  16         6    1      451.617       59.926    ops/s

Boon wins by a wide margin.

File medium.json 2 KB (2,000 bytes)

Benchmark                                   Mode Thr     Count  Sec         Mean   Mean error    Units
i.g.j.f.BoonBenchMark.medium               thrpt  16         6    1   249553.100    19159.077    ops/s
i.g.j.f.JacksonASTBenchmark.medium         thrpt  16         6    1   197056.072    21201.261    ops/s

Boon wins.

File menu.json 256 bytes

Benchmark                                   Mode Thr     Count  Sec         Mean   Mean error    Units
i.g.j.f.BoonBenchMark.menu                 thrpt  16         6    1   271678.375    24672.358    ops/s
i.g.j.f.JacksonASTBenchmark.menu           thrpt  16         6    1   284756.122    88111.175    ops/s

Call it a tie. Jackson barely wins.

File sgml.json 705 bytes

Benchmark                                   Mode Thr     Count  Sec         Mean   Mean error    Units
i.g.j.f.BoonBenchMark.sgml                 thrpt  16         6    1   258278.919     9886.144    ops/s
i.g.j.f.JacksonASTBenchmark.sgml           thrpt  16         6    1   253126.067    20414.849    ops/s

Call it a tie. Boon barely wins.

File webxml.json 4K bytes

Benchmark                                   Mode Thr     Count  Sec         Mean   Mean error    Units
i.g.j.f.BoonBenchMark.webxml               thrpt  16         6    1   208778.647    15219.752    ops/s
i.g.j.f.JacksonASTBenchmark.webxml         thrpt  16         6    1   127184.025    17270.754    ops/s

Boon wins by a large margin.

File widget.json 761 bytes

Benchmark                                   Mode Thr     Count  Sec         Mean   Mean error    Units
i.g.j.f.BoonBenchMark.widget               thrpt  16         6    1   268296.542    21856.333    ops/s
i.g.j.f.JacksonASTBenchmark.widget         thrpt  16         6    1   222440.689    39514.739    ops/s

Boon wins.

File Boon vs. Jackson

Boon wins 5 out of 7 tests. And it wins by larger margins.

Reader

Boon and Jackson can use a reader to read a JSON stream.

 java -jar target/microbenchmarks.jar ".*reader.*"  -wi 3 -i 3 -f 2 -t 16

Reader results (altogether)

Benchmark                                          Mode Thr     Count  Sec         Mean   Mean error    Units
i.g.j.r.MainBoonBenchmark.actionLabel             thrpt  16         6    1  1482160.136   127335.188    ops/s
i.g.j.r.MainJacksonObjectBenchmark.actionLabel    thrpt  16         6    1   528522.919    70537.978    ops/s

Boon 3x faster

i.g.j.r.MainBoonBenchmark.citmCatalog             thrpt  16         6    1     1102.425      272.243    ops/s
i.g.j.r.MainJacksonObjectBenchmark.citmCatalog    thrpt  16         6    1      396.981       28.491    ops/s

Boon over 2x faster

i.g.j.r.MainBoonBenchmark.medium                  thrpt  16         6    1  1164408.836    71138.499    ops/s
i.g.j.r.MainJacksonObjectBenchmark.medium         thrpt  16         6    1   365940.803    15780.746    ops/s

Boon 2.7x faster.

i.g.j.r.MainBoonBenchmark.menu                    thrpt  16         6    1  4730577.939   206541.736    ops/s
i.g.j.r.MainJacksonObjectBenchmark.menu           thrpt  16         6    1  1581462.192   289868.322    ops/s

Boon over 2x faster.

i.g.j.r.MainBoonBenchmark.sgml                    thrpt  16         6    1  4813803.211   157129.919    ops/s
i.g.j.r.MainJacksonObjectBenchmark.sgml           thrpt  16         6    1  1643288.822    80243.617    ops/s

Boon over 2x faster.

i.g.j.r.MainBoonBenchmark.webxml                  thrpt  16         6    1   646994.644   101870.656    ops/s
i.g.j.r.MainJacksonObjectBenchmark.webxml         thrpt  16         6    1   203544.281    15564.338    ops/s

Boon over 3x faster.

i.g.j.r.MainBoonBenchmark.widget                  thrpt  16         6    1  1922759.581   360131.835    ops/s
i.g.j.r.MainJacksonObjectBenchmark.widget         thrpt  16         6    1   639264.142    36270.570    ops/s

Boon almost 3x faster.

Parsing JSON from Reader Boon vs. Jackson

Boon wins 7 out of 7 tests and almost all close to 3x faster.

Parse From byte[] array

Boon and Jackson can parse direct from a byte[].

 java -jar target/microbenchmarks.jar ".*byte.*"  -wi 3 -i 3 -f 2 -t 16

Results from parsing direct from a byte array

Benchmark                                          Mode Thr     Count  Sec         Mean   Mean error    Units
i.g.j.b.MainBoonBenchmark.actionLabel             thrpt  16         6    1  1221958.008    30506.924    ops/s
i.g.j.b.MainJacksonObjectBenchmark.actionLabel    thrpt  16         6    1   636254.022    33273.771    ops/s

Boon wins by 2x

i.g.j.b.MainBoonBenchmark.citmCatalog             thrpt  16         6    1     1000.572       79.712    ops/s
i.g.j.b.MainJacksonObjectBenchmark.citmCatalog    thrpt  16         6    1      537.311       61.683    ops/s


Boon wins by almost 2x

i.g.j.b.MainBoonBenchmark.medium                  thrpt  16         6    1   854426.764    84604.024    ops/s
i.g.j.b.MainJacksonObjectBenchmark.medium         thrpt  16         6    1   436113.169    34620.702    ops/s

Boon wins by almost 2x

i.g.j.b.MainBoonBenchmark.menu                    thrpt  16         6    1  3740629.358   570942.364    ops/s
i.g.j.b.MainJacksonObjectBenchmark.menu           thrpt  16         6    1  1842253.614    50144.188    ops/s

Boon wins by 2x.

i.g.j.b.MainBoonBenchmark.sgml                    thrpt  16         6    1  2377758.261   162251.992    ops/s
i.g.j.b.MainJacksonObjectBenchmark.sgml           thrpt  16         6    1  1190724.547    60984.294    ops/s

Boon wins by over 2x

i.g.j.b.MainBoonBenchmark.small                   thrpt  16         6    1 14608691.917  4637278.405    ops/s
i.g.j.b.MainJacksonObjectBenchmark.small          thrpt  16         6    1  3843711.836   237716.513    ops/s

Boon wins by 4x.

i.g.j.b.MainBoonBenchmark.webxml                  thrpt  16         6    1   503674.722    30799.444    ops/s
i.g.j.b.MainJacksonObjectBenchmark.webxml         thrpt  16         6    1   225047.361    31226.580    ops/s

Boon wins by over 2x.

i.g.j.b.MainBoonBenchmark.widget                  thrpt  16         6    1  1465630.533    38963.901    ops/s
i.g.j.b.MainJacksonObjectBenchmark.widget         thrpt  16         6    1   718188.167    76972.830    ops/s

Boon wins by 2x.

Parse From String array

Boon and Jackson can use a reader to read a JSON stream.

 java -jar target/microbenchmarks.jar ".*string.*"  -wi 3 -i 3 -f 2 -t 16

String

Benchmark                                          Mode Thr     Count  Sec         Mean   Mean error    Units
i.g.j.s.MainBoonBenchmark.actionLabel             thrpt  16         6    1  1431392.169   193758.838    ops/s
i.g.j.s.MainJacksonObjectBenchmark.actionLabel    thrpt  16         6    1   564775.347    17677.459    ops/s

Boon is 3x faster than Jackson


i.g.j.s.MainBoonBenchmark.citmCatalog             thrpt  16         6    1     1531.678      304.146    ops/s
i.g.j.s.MainJacksonObjectBenchmark.citmCatalog    thrpt  16         6    1      423.206       54.482    ops/s


Boon is over 3x faster than Jackson

i.g.j.s.MainBoonBenchmark.medium                  thrpt  16         6    1  1162388.483    58546.058    ops/s
i.g.j.s.MainJacksonObjectBenchmark.medium         thrpt  16         6    1   366282.108    20279.569    ops/s


Boon is 3.5x faster than Jackson

i.g.j.s.MainBoonBenchmark.menu                    thrpt  16         6    1  4606554.667   390199.354    ops/s
i.g.j.s.MainJacksonObjectBenchmark.menu           thrpt  16         6    1  1591678.644    99655.195    ops/s

i.g.j.s.MainBoonBenchmark.sgml                    thrpt  16         6    1  2930363.631   928801.932    ops/s
i.g.j.s.MainJacksonObjectBenchmark.sgml           thrpt  16         6    1  1007490.344   100771.781    ops/s


Boon is almost 3x faster than Jackson

i.g.j.s.MainBoonBenchmark.webxml                  thrpt  16         6    1   703755.139    16904.302    ops/s
i.g.j.s.MainJacksonObjectBenchmark.webxml         thrpt  16         6    1   197618.389     9224.057    ops/s


Boon is almost 4x faster than Jackson

i.g.j.s.MainBoonBenchmark.widget                  thrpt  16         6    1  2039753.711   164417.077    ops/s
i.g.j.s.MainJacksonObjectBenchmark.widget         thrpt  16         6    1   640933.911    30993.768    ops/s


Boon is almost 4x faster than Jackson


i.g.j.s.MainBoonBenchmark.small                   thrpt  16         6    1 26063946.758  1320123.707    ops/s
i.g.j.s.MainJacksonObjectBenchmark.small          thrpt  16         6    1  4328478.361   369396.951    ops/s


Boon is 5x faster than Jackson

Boon vs. Jackson String parsing JSON

Boon wins 7 out of 7 with very wide margins.

Object Serialization

Boon and Jackson can use a reader to read a JSON stream.

 java -jar target/microbenchmarks.jar ".*serialization.*"  -wi 3 -i 3 -f 2 -t 16

Jackson and Boon can do Object serialization. Boon uses this in SlumberDB to provide a fast key/value JSON store for Java using LevelDB, RocksDB, and MySQL.

Check out SlumberDB. https://github.com/RichardHightower/slumberdb :)

Benchmark                                        Mode Thr     Count  Sec         Mean   Mean error    Units
i.g.j.s.MainBoonSerializer.roundTriper          thrpt  16         6    1   327384.050     7562.980    ops/s
i.g.j.s.MainJacksonSerializer.roundTriper       thrpt  16         6    1   210291.358    15730.171    ops/s

Boon 30% faster.

i.g.j.s.MainBoonSerializer.serializeSmall       thrpt  16         6    1   913616.875    89584.750    ops/s
i.g.j.s.MainJacksonSerializer.serializeSmall    thrpt  16         6    1   703988.967   190145.965    ops/s

Boon 20% faster.

Weird Stuff serialization

Boon and Jackson can use a reader to read a JSON stream.

 java -jar target/microbenchmarks.jar ".*serializerTests.*"  -wi 3 -i 3 -f 2 -t 16

Benchmark                                                            Mode Thr     Count  Sec         Mean   Mean error    Units
i.g.j.serializerTests.Test.complexTestJackson                       thrpt  16         6    1    69923.967     2382.158    ops/s
i.g.j.serializerTests.Test.complextTestBoon                         thrpt  16         6    1    65746.303     7178.469    ops/s

Faster.

i.g.j.serializerTests.Test.mediumTestBoon                           thrpt  16         6    1  1323458.047    55113.844    ops/s
i.g.j.serializerTests.Test.mediumTestJackson                        thrpt  16         6    1   848145.458   109868.000    ops/s

Boon almost 2x faster.

i.g.j.serializerTests.Test.simpleTestBoon                           thrpt  16         6    1  5762613.228   119177.393    ops/s
i.g.j.serializerTests.Test.simpleTestJackson                        thrpt  16         6    1  2611158.339   411964.607    ops/s

Boon 2x faster.

Beyond this is just boiler plate Boon advertising. :)

Thoughts

Thoughts? Write me at richard high tower AT g mail dot c-o-m (Rick Hightower).

Why Boon?

Easily read in files into lines or a giant string with one method call. Works with files, URLs, class-path, etc. Boon IO support will surprise you how easy it is. Boon has Slice notation for dealing with Strings, Lists, primitive arrays, Tree Maps, etc. If you are from Groovy land, Ruby land, Python land, or whatever land, and you have to use Java then Boon might give you some relief from API bloat. If you are like me, and you like to use Java, then Boon is for you too. Boon lets Java be Java, but adds the missing productive APIs from Python, Ruby, and Groovy. Boon may not be Ruby or Groovy, but its a real Boon to Java development.

Core Boon Philosophy

Core Boon will never have any dependencies. It will always be able to run as a single jar. This is not just NIH, but it is partly. My view of what Java needs is more inline with what Python, Ruby and Groovy provide. Boon is an addition on top of the JVM to make up the difference between the harder to use APIs that come with Java and the types of utilities that are built into Ruby, Python, PHP, Groovy etc. Boon is a Java centric view of those libs. The vision of Boon and the current implementation is really far apart.

Contact Info

Boon and Groovy 2.3 provide the fastest JSON parser on the JVM.

Java Boon/Groovy vs Jackson - JSON Benchmarks

Boon comes with a very fast JSON parser which has now been ported / forked into Groovy 2.3.

JSON Benchmarks

Environment

Summary

Quick FAQ

Why don't you test GSON and JSONSmart?

Why don't you test Jackson AST?

Who wrote the benchmarks?

Relationship to Groovy JSON parser for 2.3?

JSON

InputStream Parsing

InputStream actionLabel.json 872 bytes

InputStream citm_catalog.json 1.7 MB (1,700,000 bytes)

InputStream medium.json 2 KB (2,000 bytes)

InputStream menu.json 256 bytes

InputStream sgml.json 705 bytes

InputStream webxml.json 4K bytes

InputStream widget.json 761 bytes

InputStream JSON Parsing Jackson vs. Boon

Caveat

File system read

File actionLabel.json 872 bytes

File citm_catalog.json 1.7 MB (1,700,000 bytes)

File medium.json 2 KB (2,000 bytes)

File menu.json 256 bytes

File sgml.json 705 bytes

File webxml.json 4K bytes

File widget.json 761 bytes

Reader

Reader results (altogether)

Parsing JSON from Reader Boon vs. Jackson

Parse From byte[] array

Results from parsing direct from a byte array

Parse From String array

Boon and Jackson can use a reader to read a JSON stream.

String

Boon vs. Jackson String parsing JSON

Object Serialization

Weird Stuff serialization

Thoughts

Further Reading:

Why Boon?

Core Boon Philosophy

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