Difference between curl and wget

When both of these regularly used UNIX procedures are used interchangeably to download material from the internet, confusion between the two instructions results. Here are some basic definitions of each.

wget

wget (Got its name from w - "www" i.e world wide web and get ) is downloader which is used to download files from the server. It supports downloading via HTTP, HTTPS, and FTP.

cURL

curl (short for "Client URL") enables data transfer over various network protocols. It communicates with a web or application server by specifying a relevant URL and the data that need to be sent or received.

HTTP/HTTPS Protocols:

1. cURL

curl https://bhavukkalra.github.io

By default, curl gets the url's html content and outputs it to the terminal. Use the "-o" flag if you want to save the contents in an output "index.html" file.

-o or --output => Store output in a file. The output is not shown in stdout.

curl https://bhavukkalra.github.io -o index.html

2. wget

Wget saves the requested resource to a file. Here in this particular scenario both curl and wget download the resource

wget https://bhavukkalra.github.io

Other notable differences

1. Wget is a straightforward command-line transfer tool, whereas curl provides much more.
2. Wget supports fewer protocols compared to cURL.
3. Wget is natively available in Linux systems, while cURL is readily available in Windows systems.
4. In contrast to curl, wget comes pre-configured with features like cookies, timestamps, and follow redirects. Each must be stated explicitly in cURL.

Conclusion

I hope you also got something to learn from reading it as much as I had while making it. Until next time, when I stumble upon a problem statement. Thanks for Reading 👋

Connect with me

If you read through the end, why not get connected? Here are my socials - Bhavuk's Social Profiles