httpx vs aiohttp: A Simple Comparison for Beginners

#dev #python

If you’re new to async Python, you’ve probably seen two popular libraries: httpx and aiohttp. Both help you make HTTP requests, but they work a little differently. Here’s an easy breakdown to help you understand them.

✅ httpx: What’s Good

Very easy to learn if you’ve used requests before
Works in both sync and async mode
Supports HTTP/2
Great for small or medium projects

⚠️ httpx: Things to Consider

Not as powerful for huge streaming tasks
Fewer advanced features compared to aiohttp

✅ aiohttp: What’s Good

Very stable and widely used
Handles a lot of concurrent requests really well
Strong support for streaming data
Can also be used to build web servers

⚠️ aiohttp: Things to Consider

Async only, no sync mode
Has a bit more setup and code to write

Example: Fetching JSON from jsonsilo.com

Here’s a simple example showing what the syntax looks like with each library:

Using httpx:

import httpx
import asyncio

async def main():
    async with httpx.AsyncClient() as client:
        r = await client.get("https://api.jsonsilo.com/f68c0415-10c0-42bd-ad82-969ff7c7c6fc")
        print(r.json())

asyncio.run(main())

Using aiohttp:

import aiohttp
import asyncio

async def main():
    async with aiohttp.ClientSession() as session:
        async with session.get("https://api.jsonsilo.com/f68c0415-10c0-42bd-ad82-969ff7c7c6fc") as resp:
            print(await resp.json())

asyncio.run(main())