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Difference Between Wget And Curl

• April 14, 2022
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What is the difference between curl and wget? – Unix …

They were made for different purposes
wget is a tool to download files from servers
curl is a tool that let’s you exchange requests/responses with a server
wget
Wget solely lets you download files from an HTTP/HTTPS or FTP server. You give it a link and it automatically downloads the file where the link points to. It builds the request automatically.
curl
Curl in contrast to wget lets you build the request as you wish. Combine that with the plethora of protocols supported – FTP, FTPS, Gopher, HTTP, HTTPS, SCP, SFTP, TFTP, Telnet, DICT, LDAP, LDAPS, IMAP, POP3, SMTP, RTSP and URI – and you get an amazing debugging tool (for testing protocols, testing server configurations, etc. ).
As many already mentioned you can download a file with curl. True, but that is just an “extra”. In practice, use CURL when you want to download a file via a protocol that wget doesn’t support.

wget vs curl: How to Download Files Using wget and curl

Question: I typically use wget to download files. On some systems, wget is not installed and only curl is available. Can you explain me with a simple example on how I can download a remote file using curl? Are there any difference between curl and wget?
Answer: On a high-level, both wget and curl are command line utilities that do the same thing.
They both can be used to download files using FTP and HTTP(s).
You can also send HTTP POST request using curl and wget
However curl provides APIs that can be used by programmers inside their own code. curl uses libcurl which is a cross-platform library.
wget is just a command-line tool without any APIs.
Curl also supports lot more protocols that wget doesn’t support. For example: SCP, SFTP, TFTP, TELNET, LDAP(S), FILE, POP3, IMAP, SMTP, RTMP and RTSP.
There is a major advantage of using wget. wget supports recursive download, while curl doesn’t.
Wget Examples
The following example downloads the file and stores in the same name as the remote server.
wget The following example download the file and stores in a different name than the remote server. This is helpful when the remote URL doesn’t contain the file name in the url as shown in the example below.
wget -O More wget examples: The Ultimate Wget Download Guide With 15 Awesome Examples
Curl Examples
$ curl -O% Total% Received% Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current
Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed
28 3762k 28 1085k 0 0 72771 0 0:00:52 0:00:15 0:00:37 54267
Option -O (upper-case O) is important. Without this, curl will start dumping the downloaded file on the stdout. Using -O, it downloads the files in the same name as the remote server. In the above example, we are downloading, so the downloaded file will also be the same name.
Instead of -O, you an also specify, “–remote-name” as shown below. Both are the same.
$ curl –remote-name While curl is downloading it gives the following useful information:% – The total% of the download that was completed as of now. When it gets to 100% the download is completed. In the above example, it has downloaded only 28% of the file.
Total – The total size of the file
Received – The total size of the file that was has been downloaded so far. In the above example, it has downloaded 1085k so far (out of 3762k total)
Xferd – This will be used when you upload some files to the remote server. During upload, this will indicate the total size of the file that has been uploaded so far. Since we are downloading a file, in this example, this is 0.
Average Speed Dload – This indicates the average download speed.
AVerage Speed Upload – While uploading a file, this will indicate the average upload speed
Time Total – This indicates the total time it will take to download (or upload) the whole file based on the current download (or upload) speed. In this example, it will take approximately a total of 52 seconds to download this file.
Time Spend – The time curl has spent so far downloading (or uploading) the file. In this example, it has spent 15 seconds so far.
Time Left – This is caculated based on “Time Total” – “Time Spent”.
Current Speed – This indicates the current download/upload speed. Compare this with Average Spped Dload/UPload to see how fast or slow your system is downloading currently.
If you want to download the file and store it in a different name than the name of the file in the remote server, use -o (lower-case o) as shown below. This is helpful when the remote URL doesn’t contain the file name in the url as shown in the example below.
$ curl -o% Total% Received% Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current
100 50243 100 50243 0 0 170k 0 –:–:– –:–:– –:–:– 400k
In the above example, there is no file name in the remote URL, it just calls a php script that passes some parameter to it. However, the file will be downloaded and saved as on your local system. Instead of -o, you an also specify, “–output”.
More curl examples: 15 Practical Linux cURL Command Examples

What is the difference between curl and wget? [closed] – Ask …

After you’ve defined “proper use”, use wget.
Why? That’s why:
Recursive! wget’s major strong side compared to curl is its ability to download recursively, or even just download everything that is referred to from a remote resource, be it a HTML page or a FTP directory listing.
Shameless copied from here
curl
library. curl is powered by libcurl – a cross-platform library with a stable API that can be used by each and everyone. This difference is major since it creates a completely different attitude on how to do things internally. It is also slightly harder to make a library than a “mere” command line tool.
pipes. curl works more like the traditional Unix cat command, it sends more stuff to stdout, and reads more from stdin in a “everything is a pipe” manner. wget is more like cp, using the same analogue.
Single shot. curl is basically made to do single-shot transfers of data. It transfers just the URLs that the user specifies, and does not contain any recursive downloading logic nor any sort of HTML parser.
More protocols. curl supports FTP, FTPS, Gopher, HTTP, HTTPS, SCP, SFTP, TFTP, TELNET, DICT, LDAP, LDAPS, FILE, POP3, IMAP, SMB/CIFS, SMTP, RTMP and RTSP. Wget only supports HTTP, HTTPS and FTP.
More portable. curl builds and runs on lots of more platforms than wget. For example: OS/400, TPF and other more “exotic” platforms that aren’t straight-forward Unix clones.
More SSL libraries and SSL support. curl can be built with one out of eleven (11! ) different SSL/TLS libraries, and it offers more control and wider support for protocol details. curl supports public key pinning.
HTTP auth. curl supports more HTTP authentication methods, especially over HTTP proxies: Basic, Digest, NTLM and Negotiate
SOCKS. curl supports several SOCKS protocol versions for proxy access
Bidirectional. curl offers upload and sending capabilities. wget only offers plain HTTP POST support.
HTTP multipart/form-data sending, which allows users to do HTTP “upload” and in general emulate browsers and do HTTP automation to a wider extent
curl supports gzip and inflate Content-Encoding and does automatic decompression
curl offers and performs decompression of Transfer-Encoded HTTP, wget doesn’t
curl supports HTTP/2 and it does dual-stack connects using Happy Eyeballs
Much more developer activity. While this can be debated, I consider three metrics here: mailing list activity, source code commit frequency and release frequency. Anyone following these two projects can see that the curl project has a lot higher pace in all these areas, and it has been so for 10+ years. Compare on openhub
wget
wget is command line only. There’s no library.
Recursive! wget’s major strong side compared to curl is its ability to download recursively, or even just download everything that is referred to from a remote resource, be it a HTML page or a FTP directory listing.
Older. wget has traces back to 1995, while curl can be tracked back no earlier than the end of 1996.
GPL. wget is 100% GPL v3. curl is MIT licensed.
GNU. wget is part of the GNU project and all copyrights are assigned to FSF. The curl project is entirely stand-alone and independent with no organization parenting at all with almost all copyrights owned by Daniel.
wget requires no extra options to simply download a remote URL to a local file, while curl requires -o or -O.
wget supports the Public Suffix List for handling cookie domains, curl does not.
wget supports only GnuTLS or OpenSSL for SSL/TLS support
wget supports only Basic auth as the only auth type over HTTP proxy
wget has no SOCKS support
Its ability to recover from a prematurely broken transfer and continue downloading has no counterpart in curl.
wget can be typed in using only the left hand on a qwerty keyboard!

Frequently Asked Questions about difference between wget and curl

Can I use curl instead of wget?

Are there any difference between curl and wget? Answer: On a high-level, both wget and curl are command line utilities that do the same thing. They both can be used to download files using FTP and HTTP(s). However curl provides APIs that can be used by programmers inside their own code.Jul 6, 2012

Is wget better than curl?

Recursive! wget ‘s major strong side compared to curl is its ability to download recursively, or even just download everything that is referred to from a remote resource, be it a HTML page or a FTP directory listing. Older. wget has traces back to 1995, while curl can be tracked back no earlier than the end of 1996.Sep 25, 2015

What is different between wget and curl?

wget is command line only. There’s no lib or anything, but curl ‘s features are powered by libcurl. curl supports FTP , FTPS , HTTP , HTTPS , SCP , SFTP , TFTP , TELNET , DICT , LDAP , LDAPS , FILE , POP3 , IMAP , SMTP , RTMP and RTSP .