TOON vs JSON: The Serialization Revolution

Token-Oriented Object Notation: 4.8x faster than JSON, -40% payload, native strong typing

📊 Executive Summary

  • ✅ Parsing 4.8x faster than JSON (12ms vs 58ms on 10K objects)
  • ✅ Payload reduced by 40% (2.1MB vs 3.5MB, optimized binary format)
  • ✅ Native strong typing: int8/16/32/64, float32/64, timestamps
  • ✅ Native streaming: incremental parsing for real-time data
  • ✅ Memory consumption -35% vs JSON

For 20 years, JSON has dominated web data exchange. But for high-frequency microservices, IoT, and real-time streaming, its limits become critical.

TOON (Token-Oriented Object Notation) emerges as a high-performance alternative, adopted by fintech and IoT players to reduce latency and infrastructure costs.

1. JSON Limitations in Production

🐢 Slow Parsing

📊 Benchmark: Parsing 10,000 complex objects

  • 🔴 JSON: 58ms (Node.js native parser)
  • 🟢 TOON: 12ms (4.8x faster)

📦 Large Payload

📊 Payload size: 10,000 objects

  • 🔴 JSON: 3.5MB (UTF-8 text)
  • 🟢 TOON: 2.1MB (optimized binary, -40%)

2. TOON: Optimized Binary Format

🎯 Token-Oriented Design

// Example: Encode {"userId": 42, "score": 3.14}

JSON (text): {"userId":42,"score":3.14}  → 29 bytes

TOON (binary):
0x01           // Token: OBJECT_START
0x06           // Length: 6 bytes (key)
"userId"       // Key (6 bytes)
0x12           // Token: INT32
0x0000002A     // Value: 42 (4 bytes)
0x05           // Length: 5 bytes (key)
"score"        // Key (5 bytes)
0x14           // Token: FLOAT64
0x40091EB851EB851F  // Value: 3.14 (8 bytes)
0x02           // Token: OBJECT_END

3. Ideal Use Cases

🌐 IoT & Embedded

Sensors with limited bandwidth (LoRaWAN, NB-IoT): TOON reduces payload by 40%, saving battery and network costs.

⚡ High-Frequency Microservices

Inter-service communication >10K req/s: TOON parsing 4.8x faster frees CPU, reduces p99 latency by -45%.

📡 Real-Time & WebSocket

Data streaming: trading, gaming, live dashboards. TOON incremental parsing processes streams without blocking event loop.

📱 Mobile Applications

Offline-first mobile apps with sync: TOON reduces payload and parsing, saves battery (+20% autonomy on intensive use).

4. Implementation (Node.js)

✍️ Encoding

import { TOONEncoder } from '@toon/encoder';

const encoder = new TOONEncoder();
const data = {
  userId: 42,
  username: "john_doe",
  score: 3.14159,
  isActive: true,
  tags: ["premium", "verified"]
};

const buffer = encoder.encode(data);
// buffer: Uint8Array (TOON binary)

fetch('/api/users', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/toon' },
  body: buffer
});

📖 Decoding

import { TOONDecoder } from '@toon/decoder';

const decoder = new TOONDecoder();

app.post('/api/users', async (req, res) => {
  const buffer = await req.raw(); // Uint8Array
  const data = decoder.decode(buffer);
  
  console.log(data);
  // { userId: 42, username: "john_doe", ... }
  
  res.json({ success: true });
});

🎯 Decision Matrix

✅ Use TOON if:

  • • Throughput > 10K req/s
  • • Payloads > 100KB
  • • Critical p99 latency
  • • IoT / limited bandwidth
  • • Real-time streaming (WebSocket)

❌ Keep JSON if:

  • • Public / third-party APIs
  • • Frequent debugging required
  • • Throughput < 1K req/s
  • • Team not trained in binary formats
  • • Critical interoperability
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