Open Discussion: Why People Prefer Axios over Fetch?

Hello community! I come with what I consider an interesting question because I continue to see the Axios library referred a lot everywhere, even in simple samples, as opposed to the standardized fetch() function which is now also available in NodeJS v18.

My question for you all is: Why do you (or others, in your opinion) continue to prefer Axios over fetch()? I am no front-end developer, so pardon my ignorance if it is a big thing I am unaware of. Yes, I do my backend mostly in ASP.net.

I'll try to compile all your answers here by editing regularly as people respond.

Thank you!

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Results

Ok, so let's start tabulating things:

Feature	Fetch	Axios
Master configuration (headers and such)	❌	✔️
People used to Axios	❌	✔️
No extra library (still needs wrapper)	✔️	❌
No installation	✔️	❌
XSRF	❌	✔️
Download progress	✔️	✔️
Upload progress	❌	✔️
1-step JSON response	❌	✔️

Comments

[naveennamani]

If your app is a single page app and heavily interacts with backend through APIs you may notice that most of the methods require common user data to pass to backend. For example a token header or custom cookies etc. If you use fetch then for every possible endpoint you've to write all those things for each fetch request. However, in axios you can create a session with commonly required data that needs to be sent, and in your actual call to endpoint you only add additional information that is required.

I've not used axios more than this, so I would also like to know more points from others.

[José Pablo Ramírez Vargas]

Awesome. Thanks for sharing. Indeed, my team is using fetch() but we do have the requirement you say. Makes me wonder how they did it with fetch(). Maybe I should check their code. I fear I'll find a mess! Hehe.

So this sounds like a solid point in favor of Axios.

[Mark Lai]

FYI, there are apiClient out there uses fetch, I personally use Wretch daily

dev.to/marklai1998/why-im-ditching...

[Shinigami]

• NestJS uses axios for HttpService
• it’s "easy" to use interceptors to add e.g. meta data to all requests/responses (like traceId and timer to log how long a call needed)
• By default json is assumed / you don’t need res.json() everywhere

[Shoubhit Dash]

In my opinion fetch has gotten really good over the years and there's no real use case for axios. I think people just use it because they are used to it.

[José Pablo Ramírez Vargas]

Alright. Fair enough. Tabulated the reason. Many thanks!

[Jack]

I haven't used axios in 5+ years now. A small wrapper around fetch is all you really need.

[Mark Lai]

FYI, there are apiClient out there uses fetch, I personally use Wretch daily

dev.to/marklai1998/why-im-ditching...

[junepark202012]

Also, check this geeksforgeeks link

[José Pablo Ramírez Vargas]

Thanks for stopping by. some interesting points in that table, although one is clearly wrong, as fetch() can be cancelled through an AbortController object. Also the first one in the table sounds suspicious because fetch()'s Request object does have the url property.

In any case, I'll tabulate some more. Cheers!

[junepark202012]

Didn't know, thanks for sharing!

[Dang Ninh]

Mainly about master configuration. It's all about the DRY principle all over again.