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

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.

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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!

There are many tools that can download like curl ,snarf , wget, pavuk, fget, fetch, lftp ,aria2 , HTTrack etc. Use it according to your requirement and which feature you want to use along with downloading. Check feature table and use accordingly .

Curl :

• Curl support more protocol FTP, FTPS, HTTP, HTTPS, SCP, SFTP, TFTP, TELNET, DICT, LDAP, LDAPS, FILE, POP3, IMAP, SMTP, RTMP and RTSP
• Curl support more SSL libraries
• Curl supports more HTTP authentication methods, especially over HTTP proxies: Basic, Digest, NTLM and Negotiate
• Curl is powered by libcurl -a cross-platform library with a stable API that can be used by each and everyone

Wget :

• While wget supports HTTP, HTTPS and FTP
• Wget supports only GnuTLS or OpenSSL for SSL/TLS support
• Wget supports only Basic auth as the only auth type over HTTP proxy
• Wget is command line tool only, it has no library.

Important Resources for more info :

• Here is good explanation curl vs Wget.

• Table of features : Compare cURL Features with Other Download Tools

• Detail of curl supported features : Features -- what can curl do

• Detail of wget supported features : wget features

They have much functionality in common, but curl has more options. For wget it may occasionally be sufficient to leaf through man wget, but for curl I need to study this webpage in a browser. I believe anything your browser can do, curl can do as well.