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?

Show HN: Mador – Make any DOM reactive with a tiny 80-line Proxy state tuple

https://github.com/marsbos/mador
24•bosmarcel•41m ago•6 comments

It took a year to ship WebAssembly in Anubis

https://anubis.techaro.lol/blog/2026/anubis-wasm/
33•xena•54m ago•12 comments

GrapheneOS Overhauled Default Apps and Secure Clipboard

https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/117225539756835649
27•Cider9986•1h ago•10 comments

Your intellectual fly is open (2025)

https://bcantrill.dtrace.org/2025/12/05/your-intellectual-fly-is-open/
425•cyb0rg0•9h ago•280 comments

Isar Aerospace reaches orbit and deploys payloads on second flight

https://isaraerospace.com/press/history-for-european-spaceflight-isar-aerospace-reaches-orbit-and...
505•mpweiher•14h ago•162 comments

Black Hole of Los Alamos Seller of surplus nuclear research materials

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/black-hole-of-los-alamos
11•Bluestein•4d ago•0 comments

NetBSD 9.5 released and EOL for NetBSD-9

https://blog.netbsd.org/tnf/entry/netbsd_9_5_released_and
91•jaypatelani•5h ago•4 comments

Research carried out using NetBSD

https://www.netbsd.org/gallery/research.html
63•Bluestein•5h ago•14 comments

Babylonian Lamb Stew with Beets (1750–1730 BCE)

https://babylonian-collection.yale.edu/about/babylonian-cooking
54•yubblegum•3d ago•24 comments

An Alien Mind

https://openai.com/index/an-alien-mind/
257•tosh•4h ago•195 comments

A/I shuts down – Stay human

https://keepitfree.ai/announcements/a/i-shuts-down-stay-human/
438•captainmuon•6h ago•294 comments

Asahi Linux on M3

https://asahilinux.org/2026/09/m2-episode-1/
250•mdp2021•7h ago•149 comments

Doomscrolling Ourselves to Death

https://www.edwest.co.uk/p/doomscrolling-ourselves-to-death
321•shubhamjain•9h ago•221 comments

Electronic skin for prosthetics to sense temperature and pressure

https://news.wsu.edu/press-release/2026/08/20/researchers-develop-electronic-skin-for-prosthetics...
31•gmays•4d ago•4 comments

Opalite Health (YC W26) Is Hiring – Founding GTM

https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/opalite-health/jobs/bNedVAD-founding-gtm
1•ckuo9•4h ago

Vidact – a compiler that turns React into direct DOM operations

https://www.vidact.dev/
36•mohebifar•4d ago•16 comments

Show HN: VODForge – a free local desktop UI for YouTube video/playlist downloads

https://getvodforge.com/
8•coopernusbaum•1h ago•1 comments

The car industry A/B tested selling a car with and without CarPlay

https://a.wholelottanothing.org/the-car-industry-a-b-tested-selling-the-same-car-with-and-without...
69•gumby•1h ago•57 comments

Human archive: They were only human

https://sayyss.github.io/human-archive/
5•jonwinstanley•1h ago•1 comments

M-DISC – DVD/Blu-ray compatible discs that may last up to 1000 years

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-DISC
165•gurjeet•4d ago•77 comments

The revolt of the reader

https://bcantrill.dtrace.org/2026/09/05/the-revolt-of-the-reader/
552•chmaynard•23h ago•262 comments

Cloud in a Bottle: making self-hosting accessible to everyone

https://cloudinabottle.org/blog/launch-post
593•zplizzi•21h ago•294 comments

Nitter and XCancel resume service after legal advice

https://github.com/zedeus/nitter/commit/1428b4c2b4246f92a7e5b2673438e5fb39fcc4a3
305•zImPatrick•3h ago•190 comments

Is There I/O After Death? What Happens to Io_uring When a Process Dies

https://blog.ydb.tech/is-there-i-o-after-death-what-happens-to-io-uring-when-a-process-dies-92c65...
55•porridgeraisin•4d ago•23 comments

Research acceleration: The view inside OpenAI

https://openai.com/index/research-acceleration-view-inside-openai
80•iamsyr•6h ago•54 comments

There Gonna Be a Shortage of Everything

https://out-of-hell.xylon.me.uk/shortage.html
25•xylon•1h ago•28 comments

The many mysteries and lessons of the Bayeux tapestry

https://economist.com/interactive/culture/2026/09/03/the-many-mysteries-and-lessons-of-the-bayeux...
56•andsoitis•7h ago•10 comments

IBM Quantum Nighthawk R2

https://www.ibm.com/quantum/blog/nighthawk-r2
76•fuglede_•3d ago•34 comments

Music Theory for Programmers

https://runjs.app/blog/music-theory-for-programmers
338•birdculture•4d ago•217 comments

I'm teaching an introductory 12 week course on Quantum Oracle Engineering

https://shukla.io/quantum-oracle-engineering/
52•BinRoo•8h ago•18 comments