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?

AWS Acquires DuckDB

https://ducklabs.com/news/2026/08/26/ducklabs-to-join-aws
167•onderkalaci•33m ago•30 comments

Qwen3.8-Flash-Next: A New Architecture, Towards Ultimate Cost-Efficiency

https://qwen.ai/blog?id=qwen3.8-flash-next
66•tosh•40m ago•22 comments

RAG Is Simpler Than You Think

https://www.lighthousenewsletter.com/p/rag-is-simpler-than-you-think
202•j0selit0•4h ago•96 comments

Oldinsurancemaps.net is now a Charter Project

https://openstreetmap.us/news/2026/08/oim-charter-project/
111•altilunium•4h ago•17 comments

A curmudgeon tries a language server

https://entropicthoughts.com/curmudgeon-tries-language-server
11•crescit_eundo•44m ago•0 comments

Z.ai confirms Ox Alpha is a new GLM-series model and will release its weights

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-26/china-s-z-ai-made-ox-alpha-stealth-model-that-...
234•garo-pro•3h ago•95 comments

XCancel and Nitter are receiving C&D letters from XCorp

167•mobilio•3h ago•61 comments

Bill Gates: The turbulent AI era is here

https://www.gatesnotes.com/work/make-ai-work-for-everyone/reader/a-turbulent-ai-era-and-critical-...
54•ilamont•45m ago•52 comments

Proliferate (YC S25) Is Hiring

https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/proliferate/jobs/OgpCKYJ-founding-product-engineer
1•pablo24602•1h ago

Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/08/apple-introduces-m6-and-m5-ultra-for-a-big-leap-in-perform...
1228•interpol_p•1d ago•1175 comments

Stalking the Wily Hacker: 40 years later – Cliff Stoll [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=656058JxTM0
164•zoenolan•4d ago•48 comments

Fake US thinktank set up and funded by Israel sought to game AI for propaganda

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/26/fake-thinktank-israel-ai-propaganda
66•n1b0m•1h ago•5 comments

Beyond Recall and the Illusion of Competence

https://var0.xyz/posts/beyond-recall-and-the-illusion-of-competence.html
42•tuxie_•3h ago•13 comments

X sends in the lawyers to shut down open source project

https://www.theregister.com/legal/2026/08/26/nitter-no-more-x-sends-in-the-lawyers-to-shut-down-o...
52•giamma•1h ago•16 comments

FDA authorizes first wearable device that monitors ketone and blood sugar levels

https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-authorizes-first-wearable-device-continuo...
456•sunnynagra•18h ago•210 comments

Omarchy development practices lead to predictable security issues

https://blog.happyfellow.dev/merchants-of-insecurity/
203•arn3n•1h ago•241 comments

Value Classes Still Need Compiler Sympathy

https://johan-sjolen.github.io/post/compiler-sympathy/compiler-sympathy/
53•lichtenberger•4h ago•19 comments

OpenAI Jalapeño: Better than Nvidia Blackwell

https://newsletter.semianalysis.com/p/openai-jalapeno-better-than-nvidia
534•bmulholland•23h ago•337 comments

Queryable Executables

https://fzakaria.com/2026/08/24/actually-queryable-executables
255•rguiscard•13h ago•73 comments

New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/08/apple-introduces-new-mac-studio-with-m5-max-and-m5-ultra/
792•interpol_p•1d ago•525 comments

Harvest (IBM 7950): Supercomputer for cryptanalysis at the NSA in the Cold War

https://spectrum.ieee.org/cold-war-codebreaker-nsa-ibm
59•jnord•8h ago•13 comments

Show HN: Buslens – where can I get to by bus? (UK)

https://rupertlinacre.com/buslens/
68•RobinL•5h ago•42 comments

Black hole singularity is a surface not a point

https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.21590
282•raattgift•20h ago•194 comments

New Mac mini, featuring M6 and M5 Pro

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/08/apple-unveils-a-more-powerful-mac-mini-featuring-the-all-n...
516•runako•1d ago•324 comments

Maiao: Gerrit-style code review workflow for GitHub, GitLab, Gitea, others

https://github.com/runetes/maiao
100•zdw•14h ago•62 comments

When str.lower() is a security vulnerability in Python

https://sethmlarson.dev/when-str-lower-is-a-security-vulnerability
153•rbanffy•16h ago•66 comments

Building a backyard office, the build and cost breakdown

https://www.imkylelambert.com/articles/building-a-backyard-office-the-build-and-cost-breakdown
383•surprisetalk•23h ago•232 comments

Nitter and XCancel receive cease and desist notices

https://github.com/zedeus/nitter/issues/1442
1046•Banditoz•20h ago•872 comments

Bomb fishing is wreaking havoc on Indonesia's coral reefs

https://e360.yale.edu/digest/bomb-fishing-coral-reefs
335•speckx•23h ago•183 comments

Run OpenBSD on DigitalOcean for $4/month

https://nil.wallyjones.com/run-openbsd-on-digitalocean-for-4month/
187•speckx•20h ago•85 comments