wget vs. curl: when to use which?

Both curl and wget are powerful command line tools for obtaining data, but their strengths are slightly different. Let's compare and contrast their features to understand which tool is best for which scenario.

wget: The Trusty Retriever

wget stands for "web get," and it is primarily used for non-interactive downloading of files from the web. You tell it, "fetch this file from the web," and off it goes, gets it, and comes back with it. Boom, easy peasy. Well, life is rarely that simple, but wget can roll with the punches too!

• You want not just a file, but an entire website, including subdirectories? wget has got you covered with the -r flag for recursive downloading!

• Your internet connection drops while downloading? You can pick right back up with the -c flag!

• You want to close your terminal while downloading? Tell wget to go to the background once it starts with -b.

wget is all well and good, but what if you're sending data rather than receiving it, or interacting with an API? That's when you reach for curl.

curl: The Master Diplomat

curl stands for "client for URL," and should actually be written "cURL." But it goes by curl on the command line, so we write it that way here (with all due respect). curl's key strength is handling POST or PUT requests. If you need to send JSON, form data, or upload a file, curl is there for you!

curl can also handle many more protocols than wget. Basically, if you're dealing with anything other than HTTP, HTTPS, or FTP, you want to use curl. Here are some of curl's flags:

• -X: specifies the HTTP request method (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, etc.)

• -d: to send data. Combine it with -X as in this example: curl -X POST -d "param1=value1&param2=value2"

• -F: sends form data! Use -F before each form field. It can also be used to upload files, with @ before the file path, like so: curl -X POST -F "username=ran.doe" -F "profile_pic=@/path/to/pic.jpg" http://example.com/upload

TLDR

wget to get data from the web, curl to upload it!