Difference Between curl and wget

Both curl and wget are popular command-line tools used for downloading data from the internet, but they serve different primary use cases. This article explores the key differences between them, highlighting when to use curl for transferring data with various protocols and when to choose wget for recursive downloading and simpler file retrieval tasks.

What is curl?

curl (which stands for "Client URL") is a highly versatile tool designed to transfer data to or from a server. It is powered by libcurl, a robust, portable transfer library. Because of this, curl supports a vast array of protocols and is heavily used in scripting, debugging, and programming. By default, curl sends downloaded content to the standard output (your terminal screen), making it ideal for piping data to other commands.

What is wget?

wget is a simple, non-interactive network retriever. Its primary design goal is downloading files from the web via HTTP, HTTPS, and FTP. Unlike curl, wget is a standalone command-line tool with no underlying library. By default, wget saves downloaded files directly to disk. It is built to be robust even over unstable network connections, automatically resuming interrupted downloads.

Key Differences

1. Recursive Downloading

  • wget: Supports recursive downloading out of the box. It can follow links in HTML pages and download entire directory structures, making it the perfect tool for mirroring websites.
  • curl: Does not support recursive downloading. It is designed to download specific URLs specified by the user.

2. Protocol Support

  • wget: Supports a limited set of protocols, primarily HTTP, HTTPS, and FTP.
  • curl: Supports dozens of protocols, including HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, FTPS, SCP, SFTP, TFTP, LDAP, SMTP, POP3, IMAP, and SMB.

3. Default Output Behavior

  • wget: Saves the downloaded content directly to a file on your disk.
  • curl: Prints the downloaded content directly to the command-line interface (stdout). To save it to a file, you must use the -o or -O flags.

4. Integration and Libraries

  • wget: Is a command-line tool only. It cannot be easily integrated into other software applications.
  • curl: Is backed by libcurl, allowing developers to integrate its transfer capabilities directly into virtually any programming language or application.

5. Portability and Availability

  • wget: Is a GNU project and is pre-installed on many Linux distributions, but it is rarely pre-installed on macOS or Windows.
  • curl: Is installed by default on almost every modern operating system, including macOS, Windows 10/11, and nearly all Linux distributions.

Summary: Which Should You Use?

Use wget if you need to download a file quickly, resume an interrupted download, or mirror an entire website.

Use curl if you need to send complex API requests, upload data, use protocols other than HTTP/FTP, or pipe the output directly into another command.