jq
jqlang/jqReviewed by AI
What it does
jq is a small command-line program for JSON, the format most websites and APIs answer in. You give it a filter such as '.version' and it pulls out, sorts, counts or rebuilds the pieces you asked for, which makes it the usual way to read an API answer or a config file from a terminal or a script. It is for programmers and system administrators. The download is a single file of 1-2 MB for Windows, Mac or Linux with nothing else to install, there is a Docker image, and jqlang.org hosts a playground where you can try filters in a browser.
How easy it is to install
A · download and open · Windows
- Windows A
- macOS A
- Linux A
- Web A
Each release has a ready executable for every system (jq-windows-amd64.exe, jq-macos-arm64, jq-linux-amd64, all 1-2 MB) with no runtime to install; on Mac and Linux the README only asks you to rename the file to jq and run `chmod +x jq`. The browser playground at play.jqlang.org needs nothing at all. Using it still means typing commands and learning jq's filter language.
Numbers on GitHub
- Stars
- 36,001on Oct 31, 2026
- Downloads
- 308,973,5371,934,330 this week
- Growth
- +35stars in 5 days
Stars over time
Facts
- Runs on
- Windows, macOS, Linux, Web
- You need to install
- Nothing extra
- To build from source
- Docker
- Disk space
- 1 MB–3 MB · from the installer
- Accounts or keys
- None
- Cost
- Free · Free and open source (MIT; the documentation is CC BY 3.0 and part of the code carries the ICU licence).
- License
- MIT (Permissive)
- Last update
- Oct 31, 2026
Risk signals (3)
- Infolicense file mixes several licenses
GitHub reports no standard licence for the repository because COPYING holds the MIT text plus separate terms for the documentation (CC BY 3.0), decNumber (ICU licence), dtoa.c and g_fmt.c (Lucent), code from Heimdal and a NetBSD strptime. The deterministic check reads the file as MIT. Reusing the code in a product means reading all of those notices.
AI review
- Inforelease files are bare executables
README: 'The platform-specific assets are standalone executables, not archives.' There is no installer and no automatic update, so you place and later replace the file yourself. The repository ships KEYS and a sig/ folder, so published files can be checked against the project's signatures.
AI review
- Infono release for four months
The newest release is jq-1.8.2 from 2026-06-20 while the code was last changed on 2026-10-25, so fixes made since June are only in the source, not in the downloadable binaries.
AI review
Evidence is shown in its original language.
What Radar could not check
- Whether Windows or macOS warns about the downloaded file and what it takes to allow it
- How it behaves on very large JSON files or on broken JSON
- Whether the version your package manager (apt, brew, winget) installs matches 1.8.2
- What the online playground does with data you paste into it