How to Convert XML to JSON Online — Free Converter (2026)

XML is still everywhere — REST APIs that predate the JSON era, enterprise integrations, RSS and Atom feeds, configuration files, and data exports from tools like Excel and SAP. The problem is that XML is verbose, hard to traverse in JavaScript, and incompatible with most modern data pipelines that expect JSON. An XML to JSON converter closes that gap in seconds without writing a single line of code.

This guide walks through everything you need to know: how the conversion works, how XML attributes and namespaces map to JSON keys, the reverse JSON-to-XML direction, and when YAML makes more sense than JSON as your output format.

Why Convert XML to JSON?

JSON has become the default interchange format for web APIs and front-end applications for good reasons: it maps directly to JavaScript objects, arrays, strings, and numbers without any parser overhead. XML, by contrast, requires a dedicated DOM or SAX parser, treats everything as a string unless you specify types, and wraps values in tag pairs that double the byte count of your payload.

Converting XML to JSON is the first step in most XML-to-modern-stack migrations. Common triggers include:

• ▸Modernising legacy APIs: SOAP and older REST endpoints return XML. Converting to JSON lets you feed the data into React, Vue, or any JavaScript framework without an XML parser dependency.
• ▸Processing RSS and Atom feeds: News aggregators, podcast apps, and content pipelines typically ingest XML feeds and need them in JSON for storage or further transformation.
• ▸Config file migration: Maven pom.xml, Android layouts, and Spring Boot configs are XML-based. JSON or YAML equivalents are easier to read and write for most developers.
• ▸Data export normalisation: Spreadsheet exports, ERP data dumps, and EDI documents often arrive as XML. JSON normalises them for import into databases or analytics tools.

XML vs JSON: Side-by-Side

The same data looks very different in the two formats. Here is a simple bookstore record showing how XML elements, attributes, and text nodes map to JSON.

<bookstore>
  <book id="1" lang="en">
    <title>Clean Code</title>
    <author>Robert Martin</author>
    <price currency="USD">34.99</price>
  </book>
</bookstore>

{
  "bookstore": {
    "book": {
      "@_id": "1",
      "@_lang": "en",
      "title": "Clean Code",
      "author": "Robert Martin",
      "price": {
        "@_currency": "USD",
        "#text": "34.99"
      }
    }
  }
}

Step-by-Step: How to Convert XML to JSON

The NextUtils XML to JSON Converter needs no installation and runs entirely in your browser. Here is the full workflow:

Understanding Attributes and Text Nodes in JSON

The trickiest part of XML-to-JSON conversion is attributes. Unlike child elements, XML attributes have no direct JSON equivalent. The converter uses two conventions to handle them:

Attribute prefix (@_)

Any attribute on an XML element is mapped to a JSON key with the @_ prefix. For example, <book id="1"> becomes "@_id": "1" in JSON. You can change the prefix or disable attribute parsing in the Options panel.

Text node key (#text)

When an element has both attributes and a text value — like <price currency="USD">34.99</price> — JSON cannot represent the value as a plain string because the attribute needs a sibling key. The converter uses #text for the element value: {"@_currency": "USD", "#text": "34.99"}. You can customise this key name in Options.

Namespace prefixes

XML namespaces like soap:Body are preserved in the JSON output as-is by default. If your JSON consumer does not understand namespaces, enable the Remove Namespace Prefixes option to strip them and output plain key names.

Reverse Conversion: JSON to XML

The converter is fully bidirectional. To go from JSON back to XML, open the Options panel and set Direction to JSON → XML. The output format automatically switches to XML.

If your JSON uses the @_ attribute prefix convention, those keys will be emitted as XML attributes rather than child elements. This makes it straightforward to round-trip data: XML → JSON → edit → JSON → XML without losing attribute information.

{
  "person": {
    "@_id": "42",
    "name": "Jane",
    "role": "engineer"
  }
}

<person id="42">
  <name>Jane</name>
  <role>engineer</role>
</person>

Output as YAML Instead of JSON

YAML is a superset of JSON that replaces braces and quotes with indentation and bare strings. It is the preferred format for Kubernetes manifests, Ansible playbooks, GitHub Actions workflows, and many other DevOps configuration files. If you are converting XML config to a cloud deployment format, YAML output saves you a second transformation step.

To enable YAML: open Options, set Output Format to YAML. The same XML is converted to:

bookstore:
  book:
    "@_id": "1"
    "@_lang": en
    title: Clean Code
    author: Robert Martin
    price:
      "@_currency": USD
      "#text": "34.99"

Practical Examples

Here are the three most common scenarios where an online XML to JSON converter pays for itself immediately — no code, no libraries, no setup.

Frequently Asked Questions