Difference Between wget VS curl
Last Updated :
24 Sep, 2024
wget and curl are the commands that are used to HTTP requests without any GUI or software, rather we use the Terminal in Linux that provides the respective output or message. The commands are very useful for web crawling, web scraping, testing RESTful APIs, etc.
What is Curl?
Curl is a free and open-source command-line utility tool that allows the users as well as the developers to transfer data without any UI interaction. It is commonly used in routers, mobiles, etc.
Protocols Supported: HTTP/HTTPS, FTP, SFTP, SCP, IMAP, LDAP/LDAPS, SMB/SMBS, TELNET, POP3, GOPHER, etc.
What is Wget?
wget or GNU wget is another open-source free command-line tool for transferring files using HTTP/HTTPS, FTP, and FTPS.
Features: Recursive downloads, Bandwidth control, Resumes aborted transfers, Background downloads, Recursive mirror files, and directories, etc.
Install wget and curl
To install wget, enter the following command:
sudo apt-get install wget
To install curl, enter the following command:
sudo apt-get install curl
Example: In the following example, we will HTTP/HTTPS request through curl and wget and download a website page.
Using the curl command, save a webpage.
curl https://geeksforgeeks.org -o geeks.html
Output: The file is downloaded as geeks.html
Using the wget command, save a webpage.
wget https://practice.geeksforgeeks.org/jobs
Output
We have the jobs file from wget and geeks.html using the curl command.
Example 2: In the following example, we will learn FTP protocol requests through curl and wget and download files.
To download files from a domain name like the GeeksforGeeks logo from wget, use the following command.
wget https://media.geeksforgeeks.org/wp-content/cdn-uploads/20210420155809/gfg-new-logo.png
The output is as follows:-
Using the curl command, we can specify the name, for example, logo, and download as follows:
curl https://media.geeksforgeeks.org/wp-content/cdn-uploads/20210420155809/gfg-new-logo.png -o logo.png
The output is as follows:
curl also supports uploading files to the web. We need to add the flag -T to specify uploading. We use the following command to upload files to any URL.
curl -T "geeks_logo.png" ftp://www.geeksforgeeks.org/upload/to/url/
Example 3: Recursive downloading
wget utility tool supports recursive downloading and we add the flag --recursive for that.
wget --recursive https://practice.geeksforgeeks.org/jobs
This command downloads all the related resources to a folder named at the web page URL. The output is as follows:
Terminal(Download in progress)
Files and Folders downloaded
The files path added to robots.txt are ignored. To turn this feature off, add the -e flag as follows:
wget -e robots=off https://practice.geeksforgeeks.org/jobs
The documents downloaded are in form of breadth-first-search. But it can be overridden by mentioning the depth by -l flag and setting the depth. The default maximum depth is 5.
wget ‐l=1 ‐‐recursive ‐‐no-parent https://practice.geeksforgeeks.org/jobs
Difference between wget and curl
Feature | wget | curl |
|---|
Purpose | Primarily used for downloading files | Used for transferring data to/from servers |
|---|
Protocol Support | HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, FTPS, SFTP, and more | HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, FTPS, SFTP, SCP, LDAP, and more |
|---|
Recursive Download | Yes, supports recursive downloads | No |
|---|
Authentication | Supports basic and digest authentication | Supports various authentication methods including OAuth |
|---|
Resuming Downloads | Yes, can resume downloads using -c | es, can resume downloads with -C - |
|---|
Output Format | Saves files directly to disk | Outputs data to stdout or saves to a file with -o |
|---|
Headers | Limited control over headers | Extensive control over headers with -H |
|---|
Verbosity | Simple output, verbose with -v | Detailed output with -v and supports tracing |
|---|
SSL Certificate Validation | Validates certificates by default | Validates certificates by default |
|---|
Cookies | Handles cookies through --load-cookies | Handles cookies easily with -b and -c |
|---|
Parallel Downloads | No | Supports parallel requests with --parallel (in newer versions) |
|---|
Conclusion
It so happens that both wget and curl are powerful command-line tools, though with slightly different purposes.
Purpose of wget is designed for downloading files and is good at simple use cases like recursive downloads or resuming interrupted downloads. It's particularly great for automating tasks involving fetching entire websites or directories. curl, however, can also do way more than wget-it provides serious flexibility in handling data transfer protocols and headers which makes it better for doing more complex requests using HTTP and with APIs in general. It's the way to go when dealing with web APIs or other great network operations.
As such, the choice between the two programs depends strictly on what you need to do-use wget when downloading files that do not have many fine-tuning controls over data transfer and curl when you need to do some greater fine-tuning control over the data transfer.