[Blog](https://scrapfly.io/blog) / [curl](https://scrapfly.io/blog/tag/curl) / [cURL and Wget Alternatives: 6 Modern Command-Line Tools Compared](https://scrapfly.io/blog/posts/best-curl-wget-alternatives) # cURL and Wget Alternatives: 6 Modern Command-Line Tools Compared by [Mohab Yousry](https://scrapfly.io/blog/author/mohab-yousry-9396552a) Aug 11, 2026 16 min read [\#curl](https://scrapfly.io/blog/tag/curl) [\#tools](https://scrapfly.io/blog/tag/tools) [\#wget](https://scrapfly.io/blog/tag/wget) [ ](https://www.linkedin.com/sharing/share-offsite/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fscrapfly.io%2Fblog%2Fposts%2Fbest-curl-wget-alternatives "Share on LinkedIn") [ ](https://x.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fscrapfly.io%2Fblog%2Fposts%2Fbest-curl-wget-alternatives&text=cURL%20and%20Wget%20Alternatives%3A%206%20Modern%20Command-Line%20Tools%20Compared "Share on X") [ ](https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fscrapfly.io%2Fblog%2Fposts%2Fbest-curl-wget-alternatives "Share on Facebook") Summarize this article with [ ](https://chat.openai.com/?q=Summarize%20this%20article%20and%20explain%20how%20Scrapfly%20helps%20me%20scrape%20any%20website%20at%20scale%20and%20bypass%20anti-bot%20systems%20for%20my%20use%20case%3A%20https%3A%2F%2Fscrapfly.io%2Fblog%2Fposts%2Fbest-curl-wget-alternatives) [ ](https://claude.ai/new?q=Summarize%20this%20article%20and%20explain%20how%20Scrapfly%20helps%20me%20scrape%20any%20website%20at%20scale%20and%20bypass%20anti-bot%20systems%20for%20my%20use%20case%3A%20https%3A%2F%2Fscrapfly.io%2Fblog%2Fposts%2Fbest-curl-wget-alternatives) [ ](https://x.com/i/grok?text=Summarize%20this%20article%20and%20explain%20how%20Scrapfly%20helps%20me%20scrape%20any%20website%20at%20scale%20and%20bypass%20anti-bot%20systems%20for%20my%20use%20case%3A%20https%3A%2F%2Fscrapfly.io%2Fblog%2Fposts%2Fbest-curl-wget-alternatives) [ ](https://www.perplexity.ai/search/new?q=Summarize%20this%20article%20and%20explain%20how%20Scrapfly%20helps%20me%20scrape%20any%20website%20at%20scale%20and%20bypass%20anti-bot%20systems%20for%20my%20use%20case%3A%20https%3A%2F%2Fscrapfly.io%2Fblog%2Fposts%2Fbest-curl-wget-alternatives) [ ](https://www.google.com/search?udm=50&aep=11&q=Summarize%20this%20article%20and%20explain%20how%20Scrapfly%20helps%20me%20scrape%20any%20website%20at%20scale%20and%20bypass%20anti-bot%20systems%20for%20my%20use%20case%3A%20https%3A%2F%2Fscrapfly.io%2Fblog%2Fposts%2Fbest-curl-wget-alternatives) curl and wget have shipped on every box for close to 30 years, and they still work. But the moment you are eyeballing a raw JSON blob with no formatting, or watching a single-threaded download crawl on a gigabit line, you start wondering what else is out there. Add a fetch that comes back as a Cloudflare block page and the incumbents run out of answers fast. This is a by-job menu of six modern CLI tools and exactly when each one earns a spot over curl or wget. ## Key Takeaways - For readable HTTP and JSON work, reach for HTTPie. For the same ergonomics with native-binary speed, use xh. - To keep curl's exact flags but get formatted, colorized output use curlie. - For a drop-in wget upgrade with multithreading and HTTP/2 use wget2. For fast, resumable, multi-source downloads use aria2. - When a plain CLI fetch gets blocked by anti-bot systems, a managed fetch tool such as Scrapfly CLI is the escape hatch. - curl and wget are still the right default for ubiquity, portable scripting, and simple one-off fetches. The alternatives below only earn their place when they remove a specific pain. **Get web scraping tips in your inbox**Trusted by 100K+ developers and 30K+ enterprises. Unsubscribe anytime. ## Which cURL or Wget Alternative Should You Use? There is no single best replacement. The right tool depends on the job. For readable API calls, reach for HTTPie or xh. For big parallel downloads, reach for aria2 or wget2. For fetches that keep getting blocked, reach for a managed fetch tool. A few quick picks before the full breakdown: - Readable HTTP and JSON work calls for HTTPie or xh. - Keeping curl's exact flags while adding readable output calls for curlie. - A drop-in wget upgrade with more speed calls for wget2. - Fast, resumable, multi-source downloads call for aria2. - Surviving an anti-bot block from the command line calls for Scrapfly CLI. The table below lines up all six against the criteria that actually matter when picking between them. That means language, parallelism, protocol support, JSON handling, and whether the tool does anything about anti-bot blocking at all. | Tool | Language | Best for | Parallel downloads | HTTP/2 | JSON ergonomics | Handles anti-bot | License | Stars (Aug 2026) | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | [HTTPie](https://github.com/httpie/cli) | Python | Readable HTTP and JSON work | No | No | Native, syntax-highlighted | No | BSD-3-Clause | ~38.4k | | [xh](https://github.com/ducaale/xh) | Rust | HTTPie ergonomics at native speed | No | Yes | Native, syntax-highlighted | No | MIT | ~8.0k | | [curlie](https://github.com/rs/curlie) | Go, wraps curl | curl power with readable output | Manual, via curl flags | Yes | Formatted on top of curl | No | MIT | ~3.7k | | [wget2](https://gitlab.com/gnuwget/wget2) | C | Drop-in wget upgrade | Yes, multithreaded | Yes | No | No | GPL-3.0-or-later | ~453 (GitLab) | | [aria2](https://github.com/aria2/aria2) | C++ | Fast, resumable, multi-source downloads | Yes, segmented per file | No | No | No | GPL-2.0 | ~41.7k | | [Scrapfly CLI](https://scrapfly.io/products/scrapfly-cli) | Go | CLI fetches that must survive anti-bot | Not built for bulk downloads | Yes, via the API | Native, stable JSON envelope | Yes | MIT | New, backed by a managed API | If you are still deciding between curl and wget rather than an alternative, this covers that comparison in full. [cURL vs Wget: Key Differences ExplainedIn the world of web command-line tools, two names frequently come up: cURL and wget. Whether you're a web developer, system administrator or just want to automate your daily tasks you might wonder which tool should you choose: cURL or wget?](https://scrapfly.io/blog/posts/curl-vs-wget) This article picks up where that one leaves off. ## How Did We Rank These? Entries earned a spot by meeting four criteria: - Solves a distinct, common curl or wget pain. - Genuinely command-line, not a GUI wrapper. - Installable and usable today. - Shows a real maintenance signal, not an abandoned repository. The ordering reflects how cleanly each tool maps to a specific job, not a vendor relationship. This list is scoped to CLI tools only. Python HTTP libraries like requests, httpx, curl-cffi, and Scrapling solve the same problem from inside a script and deserve their own comparison. No named commercial scraping vendor is ranked here. The entries are independent open-source tools, with one exception labeled honestly. Scrapfly CLI is open-source code that runs on the managed Scrapfly API, and it earns its place for a job the other five cannot do at all. With the criteria set, the rankings below start with the tool most people reach for first when curl's output becomes unreadable. ## 1. HTTPie: Best for Readable HTTP and JSON Work HTTPie is the best choice when you want human-readable, JSON-first HTTP interactions straight from the terminal. It is open source under BSD-3-Clause and written in Python, the original "curl for humans." As of August 2026 it sits at roughly 38,400 GitHub stars, though that understates its reach. The repository was briefly made private in 2022, and GitHub cascade-deleted around 54,000 stars and 1,000 watchers that it never restored. The win is immediate the first time you run it. - Output is syntax-highlighted and auto-formatted by default. - JSON is a first-class type rather than a string you assemble by hand. - Sessions persist headers and cookies across requests. - Flag syntax reads almost like plain English. It removes curl's unreadable-output pain instantly, with no extra flags required. The limits are: - Python startup and runtime overhead make HTTPie slow on very large transfers. On an 80GB localhost transfer, curl's own author clocked HTTPie at 153 seconds against curl's 25. Those are 2016-era builds (httpie 0.9.8, curl 7.51.0), so read it as an illustration of the Python overhead rather than a current number. - Release frequency has slowed. The latest tagged version, 3.2.4, shipped in November 2024, and the last commit on master landed in December 2024. bash```bash # HTTPie: readable JSON output with zero extra flags http GET https://httpbin.dev/get # HTTPie: POST with inline JSON, no quoting or escaping needed http POST https://httpbin.dev/post name=John age:=30 ``` The curl equivalent of that second command needs an explicit content-type header and a hand-built JSON string: bash```bash curl -X POST https://httpbin.dev/post \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"name": "John", "age": 30}' ``` HTTPie is best for developers who live in APIs and value readability over raw throughput. That Python overhead is exactly the complaint the next tool on this list was built to answer. ## 2. xh: Best for HTTPie Ergonomics at Native Speed xh gives you HTTPie's syntax without the Python overhead, packaged as a single fast Rust binary. It is open source under the MIT license, written in Rust, and built to be near drop-in compatible with HTTPie's request syntax. It sits at roughly 8,000 GitHub stars as of August 2026, with its latest release, v0.26.2, shipping on 26 July 2026. The win is speed without giving up HTTPie's readability. - A `--curl` flag prints the curl equivalent of whatever xh command you just ran, useful for sharing with a teammate who lacks xh. - A single static binary with no runtime dependency, so startup is instant and there is no Python interpreter sitting in the transfer path. The limits are: - Not 100% feature-parity with HTTPie, and strict-compatibility mode does not close the gap: its only effect is that `--check-status` stops being on by default. - Smaller plugin ecosystem, since there is no Python package index to extend into. bash```bash # xh keeps HTTPie's request-item syntax as a single native binary xh GET https://httpbin.dev/get X-API-Key:test123 sort==desc # --curl prints the exact curl command xh would have run xh --curl GET https://httpbin.dev/get X-API-Key:test123 sort==desc ``` xh is best for developers who want the HTTPie experience inside scripts and CI pipelines, where a single binary and fast startup actually matter. For readers who want curl's exact flags rather than a new syntax to learn, the next entry keeps curl underneath and only changes the output. ## 3. curlie: Best for curl Power with HTTPie Readability curlie is for people who want to keep curl's exact behavior and flags but get HTTPie-style formatted output on top. It is open source under the MIT license and written in Go, a thin frontend that passes your arguments straight through to the `curl` binary on your system. It shells out to curl rather than reimplementing its networking, so every curl flag and protocol still works unmodified. It sits at roughly 3,700 GitHub stars as of August 2026. Because it is curl underneath, you get colorized, formatted output without relearning a single flag. - Headers still print to stderr the way curl behaves. - Output streams unbuffered rather than waiting to be prettified. - A `--curl` option shows the raw curl invocation if you need to hand it off. - HTTPie-style request items work too: `name=value` becomes a JSON field, `name:value` a header, `name==value` a query parameter. It removes curl's readability pain without giving up curl's power. The limits are: - It needs the real `curl` binary present on the system, since it is not a standalone reimplementation. - It only pretty-prints JSON, so any other response type comes back exactly as curl printed it. It is not a reimplementation of curl. It is curl, dressed up. bash```bash # curlie: same flags curl would take, formatted JSON output curlie -X POST https://httpbin.dev/post -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"name": "John", "age": 30}' # --curl prints the exact curl command curlie would have run curlie --curl -X POST https://httpbin.dev/post -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"name": "John", "age": 30}' ``` curlie is best for curl power users who only want better output, not a new command language to learn. The next three entries move from HTTP clients to download tools, starting with the most direct upgrade path for existing wget users. ## 4. wget2: Best Drop-In Upgrade from wget wget2 is the smoothest upgrade path when you want wget's exact behavior plus multithreading and HTTP/2. It is the official GNU successor to wget, licensed GPL-3.0-or-later, with its canonical home on GitLab under the `gnuwget/wget2` namespace rather than GitHub. That accounts for its modest star count, roughly 450, and development stays active, with commits landing in August 2026 and v2.2.1 tagged in December 2025. The win is real speed without a rewrite. - Downloads multiple files in parallel using multiple threads. - Negotiates HTTP/2 with multiplexing. - Supports compression including gzip, brotli, and zstd. - Keeps largely the same flags as wget, so existing scripts port with minimal change. It removes wget's single-threaded and no-HTTP/2 ceiling directly. The limits are: - Packaging lags behind in some Linux distributions, so you may need to build from source or grab a newer package than your default repos offer. - Not every wget edge-case flag maps one to one. bash```bash # wget: single-threaded recursive mirror wget --mirror --no-parent --page-requisites https://httpbin.dev/ # wget2: the same flags, but multithreaded and HTTP/2 aware wget2 --mirror --no-parent --page-requisites https://httpbin.dev/ ``` wget2 is best for teams with existing wget scripts who want more speed without touching the flags. For raw download throughput on a single large file rather than a recursive mirror, the next tool is built specifically for that job. Scrapfly #### Scale your web scraping effortlessly Scrapfly handles proxies, browsers, and anti-bot bypass — so you can focus on data. [Try Free →](https://scrapfly.io/register)## 5. aria2: Best for Fast, Resumable, Multi-Source Downloads aria2 is the tool to reach for when raw download speed, resume reliability, and multi-source transfers matter more than anything else. It is open source under GPL-2.0, written in C++, and built as a lightweight multi-protocol, multi-source download utility. The project sits at roughly 41,700 GitHub stars as of August 2026, making it the most starred tool on this list by a wide margin. The win is segmented parallel downloading, pulling a single file over multiple connections at once instead of one. It supports HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, SFTP, BitTorrent, and Metalink, with resume handling robust enough to pick a broken download back up where it left off, the direct answer to wget's single-threaded ceiling on large files like ISOs. The limits are: - Tagged release cadence has slowed. The last version bump was 1.37.0 back in November 2023, even though the repository still shows commits landing as recently as mid-2026. - No HTTP/2 support, an open request in its issue tracker that has sat unresolved for years. - It is a downloader, not an API-testing client. It will not format a JSON response for you. bash```bash # Pull one file over 4 parallel connections instead of one aria2c -x 4 -s 4 https://proof.ovh.net/files/10Mb.dat -o sample.bin ``` aria2 is best for bulk file downloads, large archives, and mirror or backup jobs where connection count is the bottleneck. None of the five tools above do anything when the problem is not speed or readability, but an active block. That is where the last entry comes in. ## 6. Scrapfly CLI: Best for CLI Fetches That Must Survive Anti-Bot When a plain curl or wget fetch comes back as a Cloudflare block page, Scrapfly CLI is the CLI-native escape hatch. It routes the same one-line fetch through a managed layer that handles the blocking, rather than asking you to reverse-engineer why the request failed. Scrapfly CLI is the official command-line interface for the Scrapfly platform, an open-source, MIT-licensed single binary at `github.com/scrapfly/scrapfly-cli`. It is open-source code that runs on the managed Scrapfly API, so it needs an API key, and the free tier gives you 1,000 credits with no credit card required. Where it wins is the exact thing curl and wget cannot do at all. Take a page built specifically to demonstrate blocking, `web-scraping.dev/antibot/easy`. A plain curl request to that page returns a 403: bash```bash curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}\n" https://web-scraping.dev/antibot/easy # 403 ``` The same fetch through Scrapfly CLI, with anti-bot bypass and JavaScript rendering turned on, gets through: bash```bash scrapfly scrape https://web-scraping.dev/antibot/easy --asp --render-js --format markdown ``` Every command returns a stable JSON envelope shaped like `{ success, product, data | error }`, so it pipes cleanly into other tools and drops into CI without custom parsing. Anti-bot bypass, JavaScript rendering, and proxy rotation all run behind that single call, which is exactly the layer curl and wget were never built to touch. The limits are: - Unlike the other five tools on this list, Scrapfly CLI is not fully local. It calls a hosted API and consumes credits, so it is overkill for sites that are not actively defended. Use it when the block is the actual problem, not as a general-purpose downloader. - For readers who then want to script the same fetch rather than run it from a shell, Scrapfly also ships SDKs in Python, TypeScript, Go, and Rust, plus a Scrapy extension, so the managed fetch is not limited to the CLI or to Python. Scrapfly CLI is best for developers whose CLI scraping or fetching breaks on anti-bot walls and who want a one-command managed fallback rather than a stealth stack to maintain. For the deeper mechanics of what a page like Turnstile actually checks before it decides to block you, the [How to Bypass Cloudflare When Web Scraping in 2026Cloudflare offers one of the most popular anti scraping service, so in this article we'll take a look how it works and how to bypass it.](https://scrapfly.io/blog/posts/how-to-bypass-cloudflare-anti-scraping) guide covers it in full. The [Scrapfly CLI product page](https://scrapfly.io/products/scrapfly-cli) has the full command reference. With all six ranked, it is worth being honest about when none of this list is the right call. ## When curl or wget Is Still the Right Call For ubiquity, portable scripting, and simple one-off fetches, curl and wget remain the correct default. The five alternatives above only earn their place when they remove a specific, named pain. curl ships by default on macOS and on Windows 10 and later, and supports more than 25 protocols along with HTTP/2 and HTTP/3, hard to beat for portability across machines you do not control. wget's recursive mirroring and simple "download this URL" ergonomics are still ideal for quick, dependency-free grabs. The rule is simple. If your script has to run anywhere with zero installs, stay with curl or wget. Reach for an alternative only when readability, parallelism, HTTP/2, or an anti-bot wall is the actual blocker you are hitting. A few more command-line tools solve adjacent jobs worth knowing about even though they did not make the ranked six. ## Other Command-Line Tools Worth Knowing hurl runs HTTP requests defined in plain-text files with built-in assertions, which makes it a strong fit for API testing and CI checks rather than general downloading. grpcurl is curl for gRPC services, protocol-specific and not an HTTP-download tool at all. GUI tools like Postman are out of scope for this list entirely, since everything above stays command-line by design. None of these three are ranked alongside the six above because they solve a different job, not a weaker version of the same one. ## FAQ Is HTTPie free for commercial use?Yes. The HTTPie command-line client is open source under the BSD-3-Clause license, which permits commercial use without restriction. HTTPie also sells a separate hosted product, but the CLI itself is free either way. Is there a curl alternative that runs natively on Windows?curl itself ships with Windows 10 and later, and xh, curlie, wget2, and aria2 all provide native Windows builds, so none of this list is limited to a Unix-only environment. Is aria2 still maintained?The project's tagged release cadence has been slow, but the repository still shows recent commit activity as of mid-2026; check the repo for the current release before standardizing on it. What is the difference between these CLI tools and a Python HTTP library?These are commands you run from a shell. Libraries like requests, httpx, and curl-cffi get imported into Python code instead. If a library fits your workflow better than a command does, that is a separate comparison worth its own read rather than a detour here. Which alternative bypasses Cloudflare from the command line?None of the plain CLI tools do. A managed fetch tool such as Scrapfly CLI handles anti-bot bypass, JavaScript rendering, and proxy rotation on the same one-line fetch that curl or wget would send unmodified straight into a block page. ## Conclusion curl and wget are still fine defaults, but the right modern tool depends on the job. Readability points to HTTPie, xh, or curlie. Download speed points to wget2 or aria2. When the actual blocker is anti-bot, none of the local tools above get you past it. That is the gap Scrapfly CLI closes, routing a blocked fetch through a managed layer that handles anti-bot bypass, JavaScript rendering, and proxy rotation on a single command. Start with the free tier, 1,000 credits, no credit card required, and keep curl or wget for everything else that was never the problem. ### Power your scraping with Scrapfly Forget about getting blocked. Scrapfly handles anti-bot bypasses, browser rendering, and proxy rotation so you can focus on the data. [Try for FREE!](https://scrapfly.io/register) Legal Disclaimer and PrecautionsThis tutorial covers popular web scraping techniques for education. Interacting with public servers requires diligence and respect: - Do not scrape at rates that could damage the website. - Do not scrape data that's not available publicly. - Do not store PII of EU citizens protected by GDPR. - Do not repurpose *entire* public datasets which can be illegal in some countries. Scrapfly does not offer legal advice but these are good general rules to follow. For more you should consult a lawyer. [ Add as a preferred source ](https://google.com/preferences/source?q=scrapfly.io) Table of Contents Table of Contents- [Key Takeaways](#key-takeaways) - [Which cURL or Wget Alternative Should You Use?](#which-curl-or-wget-alternative-should-you-use) - [How Did We Rank These?](#how-did-we-rank-these) - [1. HTTPie: Best for Readable HTTP and JSON Work](#1-httpie-best-for-readable-http-and-json-work) - [2. xh: Best for HTTPie Ergonomics at Native Speed](#2-xh-best-for-httpie-ergonomics-at-native-speed) - [3. curlie: Best for curl Power with HTTPie Readability](#3-curlie-best-for-curl-power-with-httpie-readability) - [4. wget2: Best Drop-In Upgrade from wget](#4-wget2-best-drop-in-upgrade-from-wget) - [5. aria2: Best for Fast, Resumable, Multi-Source Downloads](#5-aria2-best-for-fast-resumable-multi-source-downloads) - [6. Scrapfly CLI: Best for CLI Fetches That Must Survive Anti-Bot](#6-scrapfly-cli-best-for-cli-fetches-that-must-survive-anti-bot) - [When curl or wget Is Still the Right Call](#when-curl-or-wget-is-still-the-right-call) - [Other Command-Line Tools Worth Knowing](#other-command-line-tools-worth-knowing) - [FAQ](#faq) - [Conclusion](#conclusion) Join the Newsletter Get monthly web scraping insights Scale Your Web Scraping Anti-bot bypass, browser rendering, and rotating proxies, all in one API. Start with 1,000 free credits. No credit card required 1,000 free API credits Anti-bot bypass included [Start Free](https://scrapfly.io/register) [View Docs](https://scrapfly.io/docs/onboarding) Not ready? Get our newsletter instead. ## Related Articles [ ### How to Use cURL to Download Files Curlhttps://curl.se/, short for "Client URL," is a versatile command-line tool used for transferring data with URLs. 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