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curl / Docs / Tool / Comparison Table

Compare curl with other download tools

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curl vs wget [offsite]

This comparison only involves entirely free and open source software.

Feature	curl	wget	wget2	fetch	lftp	aria2	HTTrack	HTTPie	xh
.netrc	+	+	+	+	+	+		+	+
Bandwidth Limiting	+	+	+		+	+	+
Commercial support	+
DNS-over-HTTPS	+
FTP 3rd Party Transfer					+
FTP Active Mode	+	+	+	+	+	+
FTP Connection Re-use	+			+	+	+
FTP Kerberos	+
FTP Ranges	+
FTP Resume	+	+	+	+	+	+
FTP Upload	+				+
FTPS	+				+
GOPHER	+				+
GOPHERS	+
H2/H3 Happy Eyeballs	+
Happy Eyeballs	+
HAPROXY protocol	+
HSTS	+	+	+
HTTP alt-svc	+
HTTP AWS Sigv4 Auth	+
HTTP brotli	+		+						+
HTTP Cookies	+	+	+		+	+	+	+	+
HTTP Digest Auth	+	+	+	+				+	+
HTTP etags	+
HTTP gzip	+		+			+	+	+	+
HTTP Multipart POST	+							+	+
HTTP Negotiate Auth	+							+
HTTP NTLM Auth	+	+	+					+
HTTP Persistent Conns	+	+	+		+	+
HTTP POST	+	+	+		+			+	+
HTTP POST Chunked	+
HTTP Proxy	+	+	+	+	+	+	+	+	+
HTTP PUT	+				+				+
HTTP Ranges	+
HTTP Redirects	+	+	+	+		+		+	+
HTTP Resume	+	+	+	+	+	+		+	+
HTTP time conditions	+	+	+
HTTP zstd	+		+
HTTP/1.1	+	+	+	+	+	+	+	+	+
HTTP/2 ALPN	+		+						+
HTTP/2 h2c upgrade	+		+
HTTP/2 to proxy	+
HTTP/3	+
HTTPS	+	+	+	+	+	+	+	+	+
HTTPS Proxy	+								+
IDN hostnames	+	+	+					+
IMAP	+
In development	+	+	+			+		+	+
IPv6	+	+	+	+	+	yes*	+	+	+
IPFS gateway	+
LDAP	+
library / API	+		+
Metalink		+	+			+
MQTT	+
Multilingual Messages		+	+		+	+
Multiple URLs	+	+	+	+	+	+
Parallel transfers	+				+	+	+
POP3	+
Recursive downloads		+	+		+		+
Retry failed downloads	+	+	+	+	+	+	+
RTMP	+
RTSP	+
Same file multi connect			+		+	+
SCP	+
SFTP	+				+	+
SMB	+
SMTP	+
SOCKS4	+				+
SOCKS5	+				+			+
SOCKS5 proxy resolve	+
TELNET	+
TFTP	+
Tiny Executable				+
TLS: BearSSL	+
TLS: Client certs	+	+	+			+			+
TLS: GnuTLS	+	+	+		+	+		yes*
TLS: mbedTLS	+
TLS: OpenSSL	+	+		+	+	+	+	+	+
TLS: rustls	+								+
TLS: Schannel	+							yes*
TLS: Secure Transport	+							yes*
TLS: Session ID cache	+		+
TLS: WolfSSL	+		+
Unix domain socket	+
URL globbing/sequences	+	+	+			+
Username/Password	+	+	+	+	+	+	+	+	+
Windows Port	+	+	+			+	+	yes*	+
WebSocket	+
License	MIT	GPL	GPL	BSD	GPL	GPL	GPL	BSD	MIT
Version	8.14.0	1.21	1.99.2	4.7	3.5.0	1.8.3	3.43	3.2.2	0.18.0

The mentioned tools: wget, wget2, lftp, aria2, httrack, HTTPie, xh

'Fetch' is an integral part of the FreeBSD operating system.

* aria2 supports IPv6 only in HTTP(S) download

* HTTPie is written in Python + Requests and thus carry their portability and features

"In development" - releases or new things done to the project within the last couple of years.

Please file a bug report if this table is incorrect, or tell us other features we should compare!