frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

Show HN: Convert Large CSV/XLSX to JSON or XML in Browser

https://csvforge.com
41•Botlabs•1y ago
Hello HN, I'm excited to share a project I've been working on: A simple, fast way to process huge CSV and XLSX files directly in your browser and export them as clean JSON or XML

Here's a few things that makes this converter different: - runs in the browser - all parsing and conversion is client side can handle data any size data - automatically detects delimiters, encodings, and data types as it parses - Live preview with column renaming, search/replace, and data cleanup - Export to JSON or XML — clean, structured output that can be used for API or Databases

backstory: I built this tool for myself. I work with massive CSV and TXT files, some over 10GB, and opening them in Excel would freeze my laptop, some of the online converters only limits to a certain size, so I started learning Python and pandas but ended up wasting so much time trying different delimiters or fixing badly structured data just to make it usable, and I thought this would be a really fun project to build

I'd love some feedback. Thank you

URL: https://csvforge.com

Comments

sverhagen•1y ago
"Runs in the browser" and "client side" isn't as much of a selling point to me as it's made out to be. It's a claim that I can't really validate until it's too late. If it's a commercial service I'm going to have to pay for, then maybe you should go all the way in gaining my trust with whatever safeguards it takes, so that I no longer care if I upload my data to your server or not.
rustc•1y ago
> then maybe you should go all the way in gaining my trust with whatever safeguards it takes

What kind of safeguards are possible with a web app?

sverhagen•1y ago
I think this comes down to legally-enforceable contracts with some teeth. A lot of business seem okay to trust Google's cloud products, or Microsoft's? I think as private person with limited means for litigation, you're likely sol.
hahn-kev•1y ago
Yeah I really wish there was a way for this to be enforced by the browser that the end user could trust. It would have to be a standard, but outside of opening dev tools and toggling offline mode there's no way to be sure.

The funny thing is that it feels safer to download a desktop app and give it the same data even though it's usually much harder to validate if it's shipping your data somewhere else.

strogonoff•1y ago
There’s a cheap trick to make sure a website that claims to do everything client-side actually does everything client-side:

1. Open the site in an incognito window.

2. Turn off your Internet.

3. Do what you’ve got to do.

4. Close browser window.

As a bonus, and this makes it better than just flipping the offline switch in developer tools, if you turn off Internet in a way that keeps the browser thinking it’s online, you can also peek at whether any network requests are made (for pathological cases where the app does everything locally but phones home anyway).

Botlabs•1y ago
Sure, but you can validate it dev tools exist for a reason. Honestly, I just can’t afford the storage costs if users are uploading 50GB+ CSVs. It’d be a huge strain on any server, not to mention painfully slow for users. Running everything client side was the easiest and most practical way to build this MVP at least for me thanks for the feedback
o11c•1y ago
"Large" generally means "bigger than RAM"; 10GB is medium-sized these days since it fits in most people's RAM. Does the browser actually have the (web worker?) APIs needed to stream and "upload" and "download"?
shubhamjain•1y ago
I don't get it. Are JSON and XML files more friendly to import vs CSV files? I always assumed CSVs were the standard. Any reasons to prefer structured formats?

Shameless plug: I am working on a similar problem of Excel not being a great tool for large datasets. My desktop app[1] lets you import raw data files and query them using SQL. (The website needs to be updated, the app looks much better than the current screenshots).

[1]: https://textquery.app

Botlabs•1y ago
yes they are a lot easier to work with when inserting into the database
snappr021•1y ago
This type of thing is fairly trivial to create with ChatGPT running entirely locally in HTML.

A couple of kb of open standard vanilla js that does some simple things faster than legacy spreadsheets etc ever could.

Even to the point of creating invoices, reports etc based on standard filters stored in local storage…

oschvr•1y ago
Looks like you made it in lovable. It has that characteristic UI.

If so, how much time did it take you?

Botlabs•1y ago
thanks for your comment, it took me almost 3 weeks to build this
constantcrying•1y ago
I think it should go without saying, but never use this with anything more relevant than a hobby project.

Doing this with any kind of data you don't fully own (e.g. data from your company) is a terrible idea, from so many standpoints. That it is "allegedly" running locally is not making it much better.

I think my question to OP is, who is this for. Any developer can write up a convert for his own datasets, in basically any case I can think of where you are handling large amounts of data you are building a pipeline to do cleanup, renaming, conversion, etc. Who wants to have a part of that pipeline be uploading the data into the browser?

Kimi K3.1 Pro and K3.1 Pro Highspeed

https://www.kimi.ai/blog/kimi-k3-1-pro
829•Jowsey•12h ago•493 comments

Twelve years of distributed SQLite

https://philipotoole.com/twelve-years-of-distributed-sqlite/
109•otoolep•4h ago•13 comments

Apple Music 404 Not Found

https://music.apple.com/this-url-doesnt-exist
695•frizlab•17h ago•214 comments

How close can pure functional programming get to C?

https://rtfeldman.com/fp-vs-c
36•stmonty•2h ago•2 comments

Local Wikipedia: Wikipedia, but only for things a half hour walk from you

https://edjefferson.com/localwiki/
1332•sohkamyung•1d ago•229 comments

Dessa: Conversation Model trained only on speech

https://block.xyz/dessa
326•dsr12•10h ago•127 comments

A practical guide to AI image generation, from diffusion to agents

https://danielball.com/notes/ai_image_generation.html
20•westsmith•3d ago•4 comments

Today, we hacked what we'd set out to hack: the iPhone

https://blog.calif.io/p/iphone
811•pavel_lishin•13h ago•537 comments

CVE Tracker

https://cve.0xosprey.com/
143•Group_B•8h ago•55 comments

Bringing uv and ty together

https://astral.sh/blog/uv-ty-integration
91•Ravencentric•3d ago•21 comments

The Quake Fan who built the map editor everybody uses

https://funcarena.com/articles/the-quake-fan-who-built-the-map-editor-everybody-uses
59•klaussilveira•1d ago•3 comments

One Man's Pan Am 747 Replica [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAFwHGGfPz4
15•Teever•8h ago•0 comments

Canadians are running out of time to oppose Bill C-22

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/10/canadians-are-running-out-time-oppose-dangerous-c-22-survei...
382•hn_acker•1d ago•204 comments

The Real Kevin Bacon

https://pudding.cool/2026/10/kevin-bacon/
277•xnx•3d ago•76 comments

C vs. C#: racing VLC's Gaussian blur

https://martinfinkel.com/blog/gaussian-blur-c-vs-csharp/
53•martz•3d ago•4 comments

The Best Monopoly Strategy, Tested on 300M Games [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_2eVAaw1UM
3•zdw•3d ago•0 comments

Show HN: Corgi, a helpful {agent, terminal} multiplexer

https://corgi.computer/
65•eiopa•10h ago•15 comments

The past, present, and future share a show floor at Pinball Expo 2026

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2026/10/the-past-present-and-future-share-a-show-floor-at-pinball-...
23•civicpivot•2d ago•4 comments

Air Purifiers as White Noise Machines

https://www.jefftk.com/p/air-purifiers-as-white-noise-machines
101•luu•12h ago•105 comments

UUIDv7: Timestamps aren’t time-ordered and other oddities

https://alexsci.com/blog/uuidv7-is-weird/
123•ibobev•13h ago•104 comments

Rise of collagen-eating microbes may help explain gaps in the fossil record

https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/rise-of-collagen-eating-microbes-may-help-explain-gaps-in-the...
26•gmays•3d ago•0 comments

Evolving Threat: http2shell is an RCE in Node, Python, and more

https://nitter.click/AikidoSecurity/status/2113759110625906950?__galadriel=lPmlGl9id4oAd5UeBwMhlY...
141•cowlevel•6h ago•75 comments

Alzheimer's breakthrough: 2 hrs of sleep restored without clearing brain plaques

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/10/261018084421.htm
65•amichail•4h ago•18 comments

A Bicycle Journey Across Brazil to Find a Vanishing Savanna

https://e360.yale.edu/features/2026-film-contest-second-place-cerrado
39•throwaway2037•2d ago•9 comments

How is music possible

https://www.henrikkarlsson.xyz/p/music
106•rafaelc•13h ago•74 comments

Rune 1.3: adds TypeScript, a Helix editor, Kitty graphics and OSC-7501

https://rune.build/blog/rune-1-3-release
47•ernestrc•10h ago•11 comments

Is this the new cyber normal?

https://drew.silcock.dev/blog/is-this-the-new-cyber-normal/
156•drewsberry•18h ago•175 comments

Animations for System Builders

https://brooker.co.za/blog/2026/10/23/animations.html
54•KraftyOne•12h ago•3 comments

A whirlwind tour of systemd-nspawn containers (2025)

https://quantum5.ca/2025/03/22/whirlwind-tour-of-systemd-nspawn-containers/
42•ibobev•9h ago•7 comments

DNS: A Replacement for Finger

https://altchan.org/sh/42
36•Bender•10h ago•27 comments