Comparison

BoardTrace vs JSON Editor

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

BoardTrace

Features
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BoardTrace is a local-first bench record for hardware bring-up. Capture test-point readings on a board, compare them against a known-good baseline, and freeze an observation session into an immutable, checksummed record — then hand it off as a board-revision passport. WHAT YOU CAN DO • Create boards with your own test-point map: reference designator, signal name, unit, nominal value and tolerance. • Start a capture session and record measured values against every test point. • See pass/fail at a glance on a spatial Test-Point Map, color-coded per point. • Adopt a completed session as your known-good baseline — adoption freezes the readings with a SHA-256 checksum, so the record can never silently change. • Clone an adopted session into a new draft to compare a later board revision, without ever touching the original record. • Archive superseded or old sessions; delete drafts freely (adopted records that are still referenced by a later revision are protected from deletion). HANDOFF AND BACKUP • Export a session as JSON (free), or as a formatted PDF report and CSV table (Pro). • Back up all your boards to a single JSON file and restore it on this or another device. Restore validates the file's schema and checksum first, so a corrupted or incompatible backup is rejected before anything is touched. PRIVACY BY DESIGN • No account, no sign-in, no server. All boards, test points, sessions and readings stay on your device unless you choose to export or share them. • No analytics, no advertising identifier, no tracking. PRO BoardTrace Pro removes the one-board limit and unlocks PDF/CSV handoff exports and the clone-to-compare workflow. Monthly and yearly auto-renewing subscriptions and a one-time Lifetime purchase are available. Backup, restore and deletion stay free forever. BoardTrace is a record-keeping tool for your own observations. It does not control test instruments, interpret electrical safety, certify a board, or provide engineering advice. TERMS OF USE Apple Standard EULA: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

About

JSON Editor

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Json Editor: Smart Json turns a wall of JSON into something you can actually read on a phone. The same document, three linked views. Edit in any of them and the other two follow — the text is always the source of truth, so nothing drifts out of sync. EDITOR • Syntax highlighting that re-tokenizes only what you typed, so it stays fast • Line-number gutter, wrap and font size controls • A punctuation bar above the keyboard: braces, brackets, quotes, true, false, null, indent, undo and redo • Invalid JSON gets a plain-language banner naming the problem, its line and its column. Tap Go to jump the caret there, or Fix to repair comments, trailing commas, single quotes and unquoted keys automatically TREE • A collapsible outline with indent guides, type badges and child counts • Search across keys and values, filter by type • Edit any node in place: rename, change type, reorder, duplicate, add, delete GRAPH • A tidy node-link diagram, left-to-right or top-to-bottom • Pinch to zoom, pan, tap a node to expand it, fit to screen • Tap a node to open an editor docked right underneath it — the graph edits as well as it browses • Expand all, expand to a depth, or expand one subtree • Export the graph as PNG or SVG FIND WHAT YOU NEED • One find bar in every view. Text search in the editor with match case and wrap-around; structural search in the tree and graph with scope and type filters, stepping through hits • JSONPath: type an expression and watch it evaluate live, tinting its matches in the editor, the tree and the graph at once. A documented subset of RFC 9535, filter expressions included COMPARE • Diff the open document against a file, the clipboard or a URL • Structural, not textual — reformatting is not a change • Changed subtrees are tinted in the graph, and array elements are paired by identity when they have one CONVERT • Preview your document as YAML, CSV, TOML or XML, each with a plain statement of what that format cannot carry DOCUMENT ACTIONS • Beautify, minify, sort keys, auto-fix • Escape and unescape a JSON string literal • Copy in, copy out, share, and a statistics breakdown • Undo and redo everything, with one history per document shared by every view GETTING JSON IN • Open files from iCloud Drive and Files, with proper open, save and rename • Start a document from the clipboard or from a URL. URL requests are a GET with your own headers, and the last ten are remembered; header values are stored in the keychain, not in plain preferences • A share extension accepts JSON from any app • JSON5 files open too, normalized to JSON with a banner saying what that cost • Imports are named after where they came from, like mydomain.com-users.json BUILT RIGHT • Native SwiftUI for iPhone and iPad, with full keyboard support • Light or dark, or pinned to whichever you prefer • A hand-written parser that preserves key order and keeps number literals exactly as written — no precision lost on a round trip • Works entirely offline. No account, no sign-in, no analytics, no data leaves your device SMART JSON PRO The app is free, and every feature computes and shows you its result for free. Pro is for keeping that result: • Extract JSONPath matches to a new document, plus query history and saved queries • Text diff, jump between changes, copy as a patch, choose the array identity field • Save, share or open a conversion to YAML, CSV, TOML or XML --- Terms of Use: https://mygems.app/term Privacy Policy: https://mygems.app/privacy

Screenshots

BoardTrace4 screens
JSON Editor4 screens

Verdict

The call

BoardTrace and JSON Editor are too close to call on the numbers: across 5 compared parameters — price, ads, in-app purchases and device support among them — neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.

Scored on Price Ā· Rating Ā· Positive reviews Ā· Number of ratings Ā· Update frequency Ā· Ads Ā· In-app purchases Ā· Monetization Ā· Best chart rank Ā· Devices Ā· Requires iOS

CostPrice Ā· In-app purchases Ā· Ads Ā· Monetization

Both are free to download. BoardTrace sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month and JSON Editor sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per 7 days. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ScorecardNo meaningful differences
BoardTrace versus JSON Editor: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterBoardTraceJSON Editor
PriceFreeFree
Update frequency—Every 6 days
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS17.0 — better18.0
Further details — not scored
Size1 MB8 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperTECK SOON NGHue Nguyen

In-app purchases

3 purchases

BoardTrace

Subscriptions2
  • BoardTrace Pro Monthly$4.991 Month
  • BoardTrace Pro Yearly$39.991 Year
One-time1
  • BoardTrace Pro Lifetime$79.99
2 purchases

JSON Editor

Subscriptions1
  • Smart Json Pro — Weekly3 Days trial$1.997 Days
One-time1
  • Smart Json Pro — Lifetime$9.99

Questions

Is BoardTrace free?
BoardTrace is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is JSON Editor free?
JSON Editor is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do BoardTrace or JSON Editor have ads?
Neither BoardTrace nor JSON Editor shows ads.

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