JSON continues to evolve with web development. This article covers current trends and practices for 2026.

Current State of JSON

JSON remains the dominant data format for web APIs:

• 95% of new web APIs use JSON
• All major frontend frameworks use JSON for state
• JSON Schema adoption growing rapidly

Framework Integration

React/Next.js

// Server Components fetch JSON natively
async function UserList() {
  const res = await fetch('https://api.example.com/users');
  const users = await res.json();
  
  return (
    <ul>
      {users.map(user => (
        <li key={user.id}>{user.name}</li>
      ))}
    </ul>
  );
}

// Client-side with React Query
import { useQuery } from '@tanstack/react-query';

function UserProfile({ userId }) {
  const { data, isLoading } = useQuery({
    queryKey: ['user', userId],
    queryFn: () => fetch(`/api/users/${userId}`).then(r => r.json())
  });
  
  if (isLoading) return <Loading />;
  return <UserCard user={data} />;
}

Vue

// Composition API with JSON
import { ref, onMounted } from 'vue';

export default {
  setup() {
    const user = ref(null);
    
    onMounted(async () => {
      const res = await fetch('/api/user');
      user.value = await res.json();
    });
    
    return { user };
  }
}

State Management

// Zustand store with JSON
import { create } from 'zustand';

const useUserStore = create((set, get) => ({
  user: null,
  setUser: (userData) => set({ user: userData }),
  
  updateProfile: async (updates) => {
    const res = await fetch('/api/user', {
      method: 'PATCH',
      body: JSON.stringify(updates)
    });
    const updated = await res.json();
    set({ user: { ...get().user, ...updated } });
  }
}));

JSON in Database Operations

NoSQL Document Stores

// MongoDB with native JSON
const collection = db.users;

// Query with JSON selector
const activeUsers = await collection.find({
  status: 'active',
  'preferences.theme': 'dark'
}).toArray();

// Update with JSON patch
await collection.updateOne(
  { _id: userId },
  { $set: { 'preferences.notifications': false } }
);

PostgreSQL JSONB

-- Query JSON data
SELECT data->>'name' as name
FROM users
WHERE data @> '{"role": "admin"}';

-- Index JSON for performance
CREATE INDEX idx_user_data ON users USING GIN (data jsonb_path_ops);

-- Aggregate JSON
SELECT jsonb_agg(data) FROM users WHERE data @> '{"active": true}';

API Patterns

GraphQL

# GraphQL uses JSON-like responses
query {
  user(id: "123") {
    id
    name
    posts {
      title
      tags
    }
  }
}

# Response
{
  "data": {
    "user": {
      "id": "123",
      "name": "John",
      "posts": [...]
    }
  }
}

gRPC with JSON

// Protocol Buffers with JSON mapping
message User {
  string id = 1;
  string name = 2;
  map<string, string> metadata = 3;
}

// JSON representation
{
  "id": "123",
  "name": "John",
  "metadata": {"role": "admin"}
}

Performance Optimizations

Streaming JSON

// Node.js streaming JSON
import { createReadStream } from 'fs';
import { parse } from 'jsonparser';

const stream = createReadStream('large.json');
stream.pipe(parse((obj) => {
  processItem(obj);
}));

Compressed Transfer

// Server sends compressed JSON
import compression from 'compression';

app.use(compression());
app.use('/api/data', (req, res) => {
  res.json(largeDataset);
});

// Client accepts compression
const response = await fetch('/api/data', {
  headers: { 'Accept-Encoding': 'gzip, br' }
});

Binary Alternatives

For high-performance scenarios:

import msgpack from 'msgpack-lite';

// Smaller than JSON
const compressed = msgpack.encode(data);
const decompressed = msgpack.decode(compressed);

Security Considerations

Input Validation

// AJV schema validation
import Ajv from 'ajv';
const ajv = new Ajv({ allErrors: true });

const userSchema = {
  type: 'object',
  properties: {
    name: { type: 'string', maxLength: 100 },
    email: { type: 'string', format: 'email' },
    age: { type: 'integer', minimum: 0, maximum: 150 }
  },
  required: ['name', 'email'],
  additionalProperties: false
};

const validate = ajv.compile(userSchema);

Sanitization

// Prevent XSS in JSON responses
function sanitizeJsonResponse(data) {
  const seen = new Set();
  
  function sanitize(value) {
    if (typeof value === 'string') {
      return value
        .replace(/</g, '&lt;')
        .replace(/>/g, '&gt;')
        .replace(/"/g, '&quot;');
    }
    if (typeof value === 'object' && value !== null) {
      if (seen.has(value)) return '[Circular]';
      seen.add(value);
      const result = Array.isArray(value) ? [] : {};
      for (const key in value) {
        result[key] = sanitize(value[key]);
      }
      return result;
    }
    return value;
  }
  
  return sanitize(data);
}

Developer Experience

Type Safety

// TypeScript with JSON
interface User {
  id: number;
  name: string;
  email: string;
  preferences: {
    theme: 'light' | 'dark';
    notifications: boolean;
  };
}

async function fetchUser(id: number): Promise<User> {
  const res = await fetch(`/api/users/${id}`);
  const data: User = await res.json();
  return data;
}

Code Generation

# Generate types from JSON
quicktype --lang typescript \
  https://api.example.com/users \
  > UserTypes.ts

# Generate from JSON Schema
quicktype --src-lang json \
  schema.json \
  --out User.ts

Future Trends

JSON Schema in OpenAPI

openapi: 3.1.0
components:
  schemas:
    User:
      type: object
      properties:
        id: { type: integer }
        name: { type: string }
      allOf:
        - $ref: '#/components/schemas/Timestamp'

JSON with Type Annotations

{
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
    "name": { "type": "string", "description": "User's full name" }
  }
}

Edge Computing

JSON processing at the edge:

// Cloudflare Workers
export default {
  async fetch(request) {
    const response = await fetch('https://api.example.com/data');
    const data = await response.json();
    
    // Process JSON at edge
    const filtered = data.filter(item => item.active);
    
    return new Response(JSON.stringify(filtered), {
      headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json' }
    });
  }
};

Summary

Modern JSON practices include: framework integration with React/Vue, database JSONB support, streaming for large data, schema validation for security, TypeScript for type safety, and edge computing for performance. JSON remains central to web development in 2026.