What is the difference between json.dump() and json.dumps() in python?

There isn't much else to add other than what the docs say. If you want to dump the JSON into a file/socket or whatever, then you should go with dump(). If you only need it as a string (for printing, parsing or whatever) then use dumps() (dump string)

As mentioned by Antti Haapala in this answer, there are some minor differences on the ensure_ascii behaviour. This is mostly due to how the underlying write() function works, being that it operates on chunks rather than the whole string. Check his answer for more details on that.

json.dump()

Serialize obj as a JSON formatted stream to fp (a .write()-supporting file-like object

If ensure_ascii is False, some chunks written to fp may be unicode instances

json.dumps()

Serialize obj to a JSON formatted str

If ensure_ascii is False, the result may contain non-ASCII characters and the return value may be a unicode instance

The functions with an s take string parameters. The others take file streams.

In memory usage and speed.

When you call jsonstr = json.dumps(mydata) it first creates a full copy of your data in memory and only then you file.write(jsonstr) it to disk. So this is a faster method but can be a problem if you have a big piece of data to save.

When you call json.dump(mydata, file) -- without 's', new memory is not used, as the data is dumped by chunks. But the whole process is about 2 times slower.

Source: I checked the source code of json.dump() and json.dumps() and also tested both the variants measuring the time with time.time() and watching the memory usage in htop.