The question isn’t whether Axios is a “bad” library; it’s about risk surface. The Axios NPM compromise in March 2026 exposed a structural weakness in depending on third‑party libraries for something browsers already provide natively.
1. Axios was compromised; fetch() cannot be published with malware
On March 31, 2026, attackers hijacked the npm account of Axios’s maintainer and published malicious versions (1.14.1 and 0.30.4) containing an obfuscated malware dropper. The malware executed automatically during installation.
In contrast:
- fetch() is built into browsers and Node.js.
- It cannot be replaced or hijacked via a package manager.
- There is no installation step, so no opportunity to insert post‑install malware.
Thus, fetch() has zero supply‑chain risk compared to a package like Axios.
2. Axios’ supply-chain attack vector came from its dependency distribution model
The Axios compromise happened because:
Attackers accessed the maintainer’s npm account,
Published malicious releases with a hidden dependency (plain-crypto-js),
Inserted a postinstall script that deployed a cross‑platform RAT.
[cloud.google.com]
fetch() has:
- No dependencies
- No maintainer accounts to hijack
- No GitHub or npm supply chain to poison
Therefore, using fetch() eliminates an entire attack surface.
3. Axios introduced malware even though the code looked unchanged
Security investigators confirmed the attacker did not modify the Axios code directly, but only added a malicious dependency that executed during installation.
This means:
- Even if you audited the Axios GitHub repo, you would not see the malicious code.
- This type of attack is impossible with fetch() because it isn’t installed from npm.
4. Native fetch() is now fully supported and feature‑rich, reducing the need for Axios
Historically, Axios offered conveniences like:
- automatic JSON transformation
- request cancellation
- simpler syntax
- better error handling
But today:
- Modern browsers and Node.js now support fetch() with AbortController, streaming, improved error handling, and Response.json().
- The gap between Axios and native APIs has narrowed significantly.
Given this parity, adding Axios creates unnecessary dependency risk.
✔️ Summary
Fetch is “better” than Axios from a security standpoint because it is native, dependency‑free, cannot be hijacked through npm, and avoids the entire supply‑chain attack vector that enabled North Korean hackers to insert a remote‑access trojan into Axios’ malicious releases in March 2026
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