# Parsing Gigabytes of JSON per Second

## TL;DR

This paper introduces simdjson, a highly optimized, open-source JSON parser that achieves gigabytes-per-second processing speeds on a single core by leveraging SIMD instructions, significantly outperforming previous parsers.

## Contribution

It presents the first standard-compliant JSON parser capable of processing gigabytes of data per second on a single core using SIMD, with fewer instructions than existing solutions.

## Key findings

- Achieves gigabytes per second parsing speed on a single core
- Uses fewer instructions than state-of-the-art parsers like RapidJSON
- Open-source implementation ensures reproducibility

## Abstract

JavaScript Object Notation or JSON is a ubiquitous data exchange format on the Web. Ingesting JSON documents can become a performance bottleneck due to the sheer volume of data. We are thus motivated to make JSON parsing as fast as possible. Despite the maturity of the problem of JSON parsing, we show that substantial speedups are possible. We present the first standard-compliant JSON parser to process gigabytes of data per second on a single core, using commodity processors. We can use a quarter or fewer instructions than a state-of-the-art reference parser like RapidJSON. Unlike other validating parsers, our software (simdjson) makes extensive use of Single Instruction, Multiple Data (SIMD) instructions. To ensure reproducibility, simdjson is freely available as open-source software under a liberal license.