cURL or Wget: Differences Explained
The world of web scraping relies heavily on command-line tools. Among them, cURL and Wget are the most prominent. But why are there two of them? And why would you choose one over the other? Here are the differences between cURL and Wget explained.
What Is cURL?
cURL is a tool (and associated library) for transferring files that runs in the command line/terminal. The tool is meant for simple one-shot data transfers, including uploads. It comes preinstalled on macOS and Windows 10/11.
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. cURL is wildly universal. It supports not just HTTP(S) and FTP, but a dozen other protocols as well. cURL can also run on a wide variety of platforms – any old system that can run a C89 compiler (that is, a compiler that supports ANSI C, the 1989 standard for the C programming language) will do. The tool can be compiled with 11 SSL/TLS libraries (some of which can be combined) for security, and supports SOCKS4, SOCKS5, and HTTPS proxies.
Other features include parallel downloads, content encoding, and decompression.
cURL Use Examples
A simple curl command to check the IP address of a proxy server you set up on your machine would look like this:
curl ipinfo.io
The response would look like this:
{
"ip": "45.152.180.180",
"city": "New York City",
"region": "New York",
"country": "US",
"loc": "40.7143,-74.0060",
"org": "AS9009 M247 Ltd",
"postal": "10004",
"timezone": "America/New_York",
"readme": "https://ipinfo.io/missingauth"
}
A slightly fancier version of the request would be checking the IP of a commercially acquired proxy server that requires you to enter your login credentials:
curl -U username:password -x us.proxyendpoint.com:20000 ipinfo.io
These examples have been drawn from our guide on how to use cURL with a proxy.
What Is Wget?
Wget is a command-line-only tool for downloading files, known for its recursive download and download resumption qualities. It also enables features like cookies and following redirects by default. It can be installed on any Unix-like system (Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, etc.).
Wget only supports HTTP(S) and FTP protocols, and its security features are more limited. However, recursive downloads allow it to download the contents of not only the given URL, but also any URL found on it. This is what makes it capable of web crawling.
Moreover, it is capable of automatically resuming interrupted transfers. This was initially attractive for university students with unstable connections. Anyone using Wget for web scraping probably has a reliable connection, but you’ll appreciate automatic resumption anyway as a quality-of-life feature.
Wget Use Examples
Here’s a simple Wget command to download a txt file:
wget https://example.com/new-file.txt
And here’s how you check IP via HTTPbin with Wget:
wget -qO- https://httpbin.io/ip
For a more fancy request, here’s downloading a file while using a proxy that requires you to put in your login credentials:
wget -e use_proxy=yes -e http_proxy=https://username:password@proxyserver:port https://example.com/file.zip
These examples were gathered from our guide on how to use Wget with a proxy.
cURL vs Wget – What’s the Difference?
Here are the most important differences between cURL and Wget in a table:
In Conclusion
cURL and Wget are very similar, both being file transfer tools. But cURL can both upload and download files, while Wget comes with inbuilt recursive download capability and interrupted download resumption. In the end, cURL is both more complex and more adaptable, better used for individual downloads and API calls. On the other hand, Wget has a lot of options enabled by default, and can be easily used for stable web crawling . Use this as guidance when deciding which tool would be better for you.
Frequently Asked Questions About Anti-Detect Browsers
The main difference between cURL and Wget is that Wget can do recursive downloads, which makes it capable of basic web crawling. Of course, that’s not the only difference – you can claim that cURL’s ability to both download and upload files is the main one – but it’s likely the one most important for web crawling.
Wget is faster for bulk downloads or website scraping while cURL is faster for individual downloads and API calls.
cURL is better for scraping via API calls due to its flexibility.
Neither cURL nor Wget includes built-in mechanisms for handling advanced anti-bot protections, so other tools or proxy infrastructure are required.
