curl vs wget in 2026: Which Download Tool Should You Use?

The Core Philosophical Difference

curl (Client URL) was designed as a general-purpose data transfer tool. It speaks 26+ protocols - HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, SFTP, SMTP, IMAP, LDAP, and more. It outputs to stdout by default, making it composable with pipes and shell scripts. Its strength is flexibility and expressiveness for API interaction.

wget (Web Get) was designed specifically for downloading files from the web, with emphasis on robustness: automatic retries, resuming interrupted downloads, recursive website mirroring, and running unattended in background processes. Its strength is reliable, automated file retrieval.

The one-sentence rule: use curl when you need to talk to an API or inspect HTTP in detail; use wget when you need to download files reliably, especially in batch or recursive mode.

Side-by-Side Feature Comparison

Downloading Files: curl vs wget

Both tools can download a file. The syntax is different and the defaults diverge significantly:

# curl - must specify output file explicitly (-O or -o)
curl -O https://example.com/file.tar.gz          # saves as file.tar.gz
curl -o myfile.tar.gz https://example.com/file.tar.gz  # custom filename
curl -L -O https://example.com/redirect-to-file  # follow redirects

# wget - saves to disk by default
wget https://example.com/file.tar.gz             # saves automatically
wget -O myfile.tar.gz https://example.com/file   # custom filename
wget -q https://example.com/file.tar.gz          # quiet mode

For a one-off file download, either tool works. wget's advantage appears when you need reliability features:

# wget: resume interrupted download
wget -c https://example.com/large-file.iso

# wget: retry up to 5 times with 10s wait
wget --tries=5 --wait=10 https://example.com/file

# wget: download in background, log to file
wget -b -o wget.log https://example.com/large-file.iso

# curl: resume interrupted download (equivalent)
curl -C - -O https://example.com/large-file.iso

# curl: retry 5 times
curl --retry 5 -O https://example.com/file

Recursive Download and Website Mirroring

wget has a significant advantage for recursive operations - downloading entire directory trees or mirroring websites:

# Mirror an entire website
wget --mirror --convert-links --adjust-extension \
  --page-requisites --no-parent \
  https://example.com/docs/

# Download all files from an FTP directory
wget -r ftp://ftp.example.com/pub/data/

# Download only .pdf files from a site
wget -r -A "*.pdf" --no-parent https://example.com/reports/

curl has no recursive crawling capability. If you need to mirror a site or download a directory tree, wget (or httrack for complex mirroring) is the right tool.

API Testing: curl's Strong Suit

For interacting with REST APIs, curl is clearly superior. It supports all HTTP methods, custom headers, request bodies, authentication schemes, and response inspection in detail:

# GET with auth and response formatting
curl -s -H 'Authorization: Bearer your-token' \
  https://api.example.com/users | jq .

# POST JSON
curl -X POST https://api.example.com/users \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer your-token' \
  -d '{"name": "Alice", "email": "alice@example.com"}'

# DELETE
curl -X DELETE https://api.example.com/users/42 \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer your-token'

# Inspect full request and response headers
curl -v https://api.example.com/health 2>&1

# Time a request
curl -s -o /dev/null -w "DNS: %{time_namelookup}s, Connect: %{time_connect}s, Total: %{time_total}s\n" \
  https://api.example.com/health

wget can technically send POST requests with --post-data or --post-file, but it is limited - no custom HTTP methods like PATCH/PUT/DELETE, no fine-grained header control, no response timing. For anything beyond a basic POST, curl is the right choice.

Protocols Beyond HTTP

This is where curl has no competition. wget only speaks HTTP, HTTPS, and FTP. curl supports:

• SFTP / SCP: curl sftp://user@host/path/file -o localfile
• SMTP: Send emails from the command line
• IMAP / POP3: Fetch emails
• LDAP: Directory queries
• RTSP: Streaming protocol
• SMB: Windows file shares
• Gopher, Dict, Telnet and more

# Download via SFTP
curl -u username sftp://host.example.com/remote/path/file.txt -o file.txt

# Send an email with SMTP
curl --url 'smtp://smtp.example.com:587' \
  --ssl-reqd \
  --mail-from 'from@example.com' \
  --mail-rcpt 'to@example.com' \
  --upload-file email.txt \
  -u 'username:password'

Windows Availability

curl ships natively with Windows 10 and 11 (since build 17063). wget is not included in Windows - you must install it separately (via Scoop, Chocolatey, or the GNU wget for Windows binary).

For cross-platform scripts that must work on Windows without extra installations, curl is the safer choice.

Performance

For single-file downloads, both tools deliver near-identical performance - they are both thin wrappers around the OS's TCP stack and OpenSSL. The difference is negligible. For batch downloads where wget's auto-retry and background mode reduce total elapsed wall-clock time for unreliable connections, wget may complete a large batch faster in practice due to less manual retry logic needed in the calling script.

Quick Decision Guide

• Testing a REST API - use curl
• Downloading a single file - either works; curl if already in a curl-heavy script, wget if standalone
• Downloading a large file that might be interrupted - wget (-c) or curl (-C -) are equivalent
• Downloading a directory tree or mirroring a site - wget
• Non-HTTP protocols (SFTP, SMTP, etc.) - curl
• Running in background unattended - wget (-b)
• Must run on Windows without extra installs - curl
• Shell scripting with pipes - curl (stdout-first design)

FAQ

Is curl faster than wget?

For single file downloads over a stable connection, the performance difference is negligible - typically under 1%. Both tools use the kernel's TCP stack and are bottlenecked by your network bandwidth. curl's HTTP/2 multiplexing can give a slight edge when fetching many small resources, but for practical use cases, speed is not a meaningful differentiator.

Can wget send POST requests with JSON?

Yes, but with limitations. wget --post-data='{"key":"val"}' sends a POST body, but wget sets Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded by default and you must add the correct header manually. You also cannot set custom HTTP methods (PATCH, PUT, DELETE). For anything beyond basic POST, use curl.

Does curl follow HTTP redirects automatically?

No - curl does not follow redirects by default. You must add the -L flag (--location). wget follows redirects by default. This catches many users off-guard when they get an empty response from curl on a URL that redirects.

Which tool should I use in Docker / container build scripts?

curl is generally preferred in Dockerfile RUN commands because it gives you more control over what you download and how, and -f causes curl to fail loudly on HTTP errors (wget continues silently by default, which can cause you to untar an error page). Alpine Linux Docker images often include wget but not curl, so check what is available in your base image.

Are there modern alternatives to both curl and wget?

Yes. HTTPie and xh offer more ergonomic API testing with JSON-default behavior and colorised output. For scripting, they are less universal than curl. aria2 handles parallel multi-source downloads better than either wget or curl. For most teams, curl remains the standard for scripting and API work.

Does curl support downloading multiple URLs in parallel?

curl 7.66+ supports parallel transfers with --parallel (-Z): curl --parallel -O url1 -O url2 -O url3. For older versions, you need xargs or GNU parallel to achieve parallelism. wget does not have native parallel download support - use wget with xargs or axel for parallel downloads.

Use our free tool here → JSON Formatter to validate and inspect the JSON responses you get back from API calls made with curl.