What is HTTPie and what are its top alternatives?
HTTPie is a user-friendly command-line HTTP client that makes it easy to interact with APIs and web services. It allows users to make HTTP requests with simple and intuitive syntax, supports JSON, XML, and form-data, and offers features like syntax highlighting, pagination, and file uploads. However, HTTPie may lack some advanced features and customization options compared to other tools.
- cURL: cURL is a versatile command-line tool for transferring data with URLs. It supports a wide range of protocols, offers extensive customization options, and is widely used in the developer community. Pros: Highly customizable, supports various protocols. Cons: Steeper learning curve compared to HTTPie.
- Postman: Postman is a popular collaboration platform for API development that offers a user-friendly interface for making API requests. It provides features like automated testing, documentation generation, and team collaboration tools. Pros: User-friendly interface, collaboration features. Cons: More complex than HTTPie for simple requests.
- Insomnia: Insomnia is a powerful API client with support for various authentication methods, GraphQL, and environment variables. It offers features like code generation, request chaining, and real-time collaboration. Pros: Extensive feature set, support for advanced API workflows. Cons: Can be overwhelming for beginners.
- Paw: Paw is a full-featured API client for macOS that offers a visual interface for building and testing API requests. It supports dynamic values, response validation, and code generation. Pros: Visual interface, robust features. Cons: Limited to macOS users.
- RESTClient: RESTClient is a simple API client for Google Chrome that allows users to easily make HTTP requests. It offers features like syntax highlighting, response previews, and customizable headers. Pros: Lightweight, easy to use. Cons: Limited customization options compared to HTTPie.
- Axios: Axios is a popular JavaScript library for making HTTP requests from web browsers and Node.js. It offers features like promise-based API, request interception, and error handling. Pros: Widely used in front-end development, supports async/await syntax. Cons: Limited to JavaScript environments.
- Fetch: Fetch is a modern JavaScript API for making network requests in web browsers. It offers a simple and clean interface for fetching resources over the network. Pros: Built-in browser support, lightweight. Cons: Lack of features compared to HTTPie.
- Wget: Wget is a command-line tool for downloading files from the web. It supports recursive downloads, resuming interrupted transfers, and mirroring websites. Pros: Robust downloading capabilities, command-line simplicity. Cons: Focused on file downloads rather than API interactions.
- Pitaya: Pitaya is a command-line HTTP client that aims to be simple yet powerful for making API requests. It offers features like custom headers, data serialization, and response formatting. Pros: Lightweight, easy to use. Cons: Less feature-rich compared to HTTPie.
- Netcat: Netcat is a versatile networking utility for reading and writing data across network connections. It can be used for testing and debugging network services, including HTTP requests. Pros: Flexible networking capabilities, command-line accessibility. Cons: Limited to network operations, lacks specialized API features.
Top Alternatives to HTTPie
- cURL
Used in command lines or scripts to transfer data. It is also used in cars, television sets, routers, printers, audio equipment, mobile phones, tablets, and is the internet transfer backbone for thousands of software applications affecting billions of humans daily. ...
- Postman
It is the only complete API development environment, used by nearly five million developers and more than 100,000 companies worldwide. ...
- Google Drive
Keep photos, stories, designs, drawings, recordings, videos, and more. Your first 15 GB of storage are free with a Google Account. Your files in Drive can be reached from any smartphone, tablet, or computer. ...
- CloudFlare
Cloudflare speeds up and protects millions of websites, APIs, SaaS services, and other properties connected to the Internet. ...
- Dropbox
Harness the power of Dropbox. Connect to an account, upload, download, search, and more. ...
- Amazon CloudFront
Amazon CloudFront can be used to deliver your entire website, including dynamic, static, streaming, and interactive content using a global network of edge locations. Requests for your content are automatically routed to the nearest edge location, so content is delivered with the best possible performance. ...
- Akamai
If you've ever shopped online, downloaded music, watched a web video or connected to work remotely, you've probably used Akamai's cloud platform. Akamai helps businesses connect the hyperconnected, empowering them to transform and reinvent their business online. We remove the complexities of technology, so you can focus on driving your business faster forward. ...
- MaxCDN
The MaxCDN Content Delivery Network efficiently delivers your site’s static file through hundreds of servers instead of slogging through a single host. This "smart route" technology distributes your content to your visitors via the city closest to them. ...
HTTPie alternatives & related posts
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related cURL posts
- Easy to use490
- Great tool369
- Makes developing rest api's easy peasy276
- Easy setup, looks good156
- The best api workflow out there144
- It's the best53
- History feature53
- Adds real value to my workflow44
- Great interface that magically predicts your needs43
- The best in class app35
- Can save and share script12
- Fully featured without looking cluttered10
- Collections8
- Option to run scrips8
- Global/Environment Variables8
- Shareable Collections7
- Dead simple and useful. Excellent7
- Dark theme easy on the eyes7
- Awesome customer support6
- Great integration with newman6
- Documentation5
- Simple5
- The test script is useful5
- Saves responses4
- This has simplified my testing significantly4
- Makes testing API's as easy as 1,2,34
- Easy as pie4
- API-network3
- I'd recommend it to everyone who works with apis3
- Mocking API calls with predefined response3
- Now supports GraphQL2
- Postman Runner CI Integration2
- Easy to setup, test and provides test storage2
- Continuous integration using newman2
- Pre-request Script and Test attributes are invaluable2
- Runner2
- Graph2
- <a href="http://fixbit.com/">useful tool</a>1
- Stores credentials in HTTP10
- Bloated features and UI9
- Cumbersome to switch authentication tokens8
- Poor GraphQL support7
- Expensive5
- Not free after 5 users3
- Can't prompt for per-request variables3
- Import swagger1
- Support websocket1
- Import curl1
related Postman posts
We just launched the Segment Config API (try it out for yourself here) — a set of public REST APIs that enable you to manage your Segment configuration. A public API is only as good as its #documentation. For the API reference doc we are using Postman.
Postman is an “API development environment”. You download the desktop app, and build API requests by URL and payload. Over time you can build up a set of requests and organize them into a “Postman Collection”. You can generalize a collection with “collection variables”. This allows you to parameterize things like username
, password
and workspace_name
so a user can fill their own values in before making an API call. This makes it possible to use Postman for one-off API tasks instead of writing code.
Then you can add Markdown content to the entire collection, a folder of related methods, and/or every API method to explain how the APIs work. You can publish a collection and easily share it with a URL.
This turns Postman from a personal #API utility to full-blown public interactive API documentation. The result is a great looking web page with all the API calls, docs and sample requests and responses in one place. Check out the results here.
Postman’s powers don’t end here. You can automate Postman with “test scripts” and have it periodically run a collection scripts as “monitors”. We now have #QA around all the APIs in public docs to make sure they are always correct
Along the way we tried other techniques for documenting APIs like ReadMe.io or Swagger UI. These required a lot of effort to customize.
Writing and maintaining a Postman collection takes some work, but the resulting documentation site, interactivity and API testing tools are well worth it.
Our whole Node.js backend stack consists of the following tools:
- Lerna as a tool for multi package and multi repository management
- npm as package manager
- NestJS as Node.js framework
- TypeScript as programming language
- ExpressJS as web server
- Swagger UI for visualizing and interacting with the API’s resources
- Postman as a tool for API development
- TypeORM as object relational mapping layer
- JSON Web Token for access token management
The main reason we have chosen Node.js over PHP is related to the following artifacts:
- Made for the web and widely in use: Node.js is a software platform for developing server-side network services. Well-known projects that rely on Node.js include the blogging software Ghost, the project management tool Trello and the operating system WebOS. Node.js requires the JavaScript runtime environment V8, which was specially developed by Google for the popular Chrome browser. This guarantees a very resource-saving architecture, which qualifies Node.js especially for the operation of a web server. Ryan Dahl, the developer of Node.js, released the first stable version on May 27, 2009. He developed Node.js out of dissatisfaction with the possibilities that JavaScript offered at the time. The basic functionality of Node.js has been mapped with JavaScript since the first version, which can be expanded with a large number of different modules. The current package managers (npm or Yarn) for Node.js know more than 1,000,000 of these modules.
- Fast server-side solutions: Node.js adopts the JavaScript "event-loop" to create non-blocking I/O applications that conveniently serve simultaneous events. With the standard available asynchronous processing within JavaScript/TypeScript, highly scalable, server-side solutions can be realized. The efficient use of the CPU and the RAM is maximized and more simultaneous requests can be processed than with conventional multi-thread servers.
- A language along the entire stack: Widely used frameworks such as React or AngularJS or Vue.js, which we prefer, are written in JavaScript/TypeScript. If Node.js is now used on the server side, you can use all the advantages of a uniform script language throughout the entire application development. The same language in the back- and frontend simplifies the maintenance of the application and also the coordination within the development team.
- Flexibility: Node.js sets very few strict dependencies, rules and guidelines and thus grants a high degree of flexibility in application development. There are no strict conventions so that the appropriate architecture, design structures, modules and features can be freely selected for the development.
- Easy to use505
- Gmail integration326
- Enough free space312
- Collaboration268
- Stable service249
- Desktop and mobile apps128
- Offline sync97
- Apps79
- 15 gb storage74
- Add-ons50
- Integrates well9
- Easy to use6
- Simple back-up tool3
- Amazing2
- Beautiful2
- Fast upload speeds2
- The more the merrier2
- So easy2
- Wonderful2
- Linux terminal transfer tools2
- It has grown to a stable in the cloud office2
- UI1
- Windows desktop1
- G Suite integration1
- Organization via web ui sucks7
- Not a real database2
related Google Drive posts
Google Analytics is a great tool to analyze your traffic. To debug our software and ask questions, we love to use Postman and Stack Overflow. Google Drive helps our team to share documents. We're able to build our great products through the APIs by Google Maps, CloudFlare, Stripe, PayPal, Twilio, Let's Encrypt, and TensorFlow.
I created a simple upload/download functionality for a web application and connected it to Mongo, now I can upload, store and download files. I need advice on how to create a SPA similar to Dropbox or Google Drive in that it will be a hierarchy of folders with files within them, how would I go about creating this structure and adding this functionality to all the files within the application?
Intuitively creating a react component and adding it to a File object seems like the way to go, what are some issues to expect and how do I go about creating such an application to be as fast and UI-friendly as possible?
- Easy setup, great cdn424
- Free ssl277
- Easy setup199
- Security190
- Ssl180
- Great cdn98
- Optimizer77
- Simple71
- Great UI44
- Great js cdn28
- Apps12
- HTTP/2 Support12
- DNS Analytics12
- AutoMinify12
- Rocket Loader9
- Ipv69
- Easy9
- IPv6 "One Click"8
- Fantastic CDN service8
- DNSSEC7
- Nice DNS7
- SSHFP7
- Free GeoIP7
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- API7
- Cheapest SSL7
- SPDY6
- Free and reliable, Faster then anyone else6
- Ubuntu5
- Asynchronous resource loading5
- Global Load Balancing4
- Performance4
- Easy Use4
- CDN3
- Registrar2
- Support for SSHFP records2
- Web31
- Прохси1
- HTTPS3/Quic1
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- Expensive when you exceed their fair usage limits2
related CloudFlare posts
Google Analytics is a great tool to analyze your traffic. To debug our software and ask questions, we love to use Postman and Stack Overflow. Google Drive helps our team to share documents. We're able to build our great products through the APIs by Google Maps, CloudFlare, Stripe, PayPal, Twilio, Let's Encrypt, and TensorFlow.
When I first built my portfolio I used GitHub for the source control and deployed directly to Netlify on a push to master. This was a perfect setup, I didn't need any knowledge about #DevOps or anything, it was all just done for me.
One of the issues I had with Netlify was I wanted to gzip my JavaScript files, I had this setup in my #Webpack file, however Netlify didn't offer an easy way to set this.
Over the weekend I decided I wanted to know more about how #DevOps worked so I decided to switch from Netlify to Amazon S3. Instead of creating any #Git Webhooks I decided to use Buddy for my pipeline and to run commands. Buddy is a fantastic tool, very easy to setup builds, copying the files to my Amazon S3 bucket, then running some #AWS console commands to set the content-encoding
of the JavaScript files. - Buddy is also free if you only have a few pipelines, so I didn't need to pay anything 🤙🏻.
When I made these changes I also wanted to monitor my code, and make sure I was keeping up with the best practices so I implemented Code Climate to look over my code and tell me where there code smells
, issues
, and other issues
I've been super happy with it so far, on the free tier so its also free.
I did plan on using Amazon CloudFront for my SSL and cacheing, however it was overly complex to setup and it costs money. So I decided to go with the free tier of CloudFlare and it is amazing, best choice I've made for caching / SSL in a long time.
- Easy to work with434
- Free256
- Popular216
- Shared file hosting176
- 'just works'167
- No brainer100
- Integration with external services79
- Simple76
- Good api49
- Least cost (free) for the basic needs case38
- It just works11
- Convenient8
- Accessible from all of my devices7
- Command Line client5
- Synchronizing laptop and desktop - work anywhere4
- Can even be used by your grandma4
- Reliable3
- Sync API3
- Mac app3
- Cross platform app3
- Ability to pay monthly without losing your files2
- Delta synchronization2
- Everybody needs to share and synchronize files reliably2
- Backups, local and cloud2
- Extended version history2
- Beautiful UI2
- YC Company1
- What a beautiful app1
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- So easy1
- The more the merrier1
- Easy to work with1
- For when client needs file without opening firewall1
- Everybody needs to share and synchronize files reliabl1
- Easy to use1
- Official Linux app1
- The more the merrier0
- Personal vs company account is confusing3
- Replication kills CPU and battery1
related Dropbox posts
I created a simple upload/download functionality for a web application and connected it to Mongo, now I can upload, store and download files. I need advice on how to create a SPA similar to Dropbox or Google Drive in that it will be a hierarchy of folders with files within them, how would I go about creating this structure and adding this functionality to all the files within the application?
Intuitively creating a react component and adding it to a File object seems like the way to go, what are some issues to expect and how do I go about creating such an application to be as fast and UI-friendly as possible?
Anyone recommend a good connector like Kloudless for connecting a SaaS app to Dropbox/Box etc? Cheers
Amazon CloudFront
- Fast245
- Cdn166
- Compatible with other aws services157
- Simple125
- Global108
- Cheap41
- Cost-effective36
- Reliable27
- One stop solution19
- Elastic9
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StackShare Feed is built entirely with React, Glamorous, and Apollo. One of our objectives with the public launch of the Feed was to enable a Server-side rendered (SSR) experience for our organic search traffic. When you visit the StackShare Feed, and you aren't logged in, you are delivered the Trending feed experience. We use an in-house Node.js rendering microservice to generate this HTML. This microservice needs to run and serve requests independent of our Rails web app. Up until recently, we had a mono-repo with our Rails and React code living happily together and all served from the same web process. In order to deploy our SSR app into a Heroku environment, we needed to split out our front-end application into a separate repo in GitHub. The driving factor in this decision was mostly due to limitations imposed by Heroku specifically with how processes can't communicate with each other. A new SSR app was created in Heroku and linked directly to the frontend repo so it stays in-sync with changes.
Related to this, we need a way to "deploy" our frontend changes to various server environments without building & releasing the entire Ruby application. We built a hybrid Amazon S3 Amazon CloudFront solution to host our Webpack bundles. A new CircleCI script builds the bundles and uploads them to S3. The final step in our rollout is to update some keys in Redis so our Rails app knows which bundles to serve. The result of these efforts were significant. Our frontend team now moves independently of our backend team, our build & release process takes only a few minutes, we are now using an edge CDN to serve JS assets, and we have pre-rendered React pages!
#StackDecisionsLaunch #SSR #Microservices #FrontEndRepoSplit
Back in 2014, I was given an opportunity to re-architect SmartZip Analytics platform, and flagship product: SmartTargeting. This is a SaaS software helping real estate professionals keeping up with their prospects and leads in a given neighborhood/territory, finding out (thanks to predictive analytics) who's the most likely to list/sell their home, and running cross-channel marketing automation against them: direct mail, online ads, email... The company also does provide Data APIs to Enterprise customers.
I had inherited years and years of technical debt and I knew things had to change radically. The first enabler to this was to make use of the cloud and go with AWS, so we would stop re-inventing the wheel, and build around managed/scalable services.
For the SaaS product, we kept on working with Rails as this was what my team had the most knowledge in. We've however broken up the monolith and decoupled the front-end application from the backend thanks to the use of Rails API so we'd get independently scalable micro-services from now on.
Our various applications could now be deployed using AWS Elastic Beanstalk so we wouldn't waste any more efforts writing time-consuming Capistrano deployment scripts for instance. Combined with Docker so our application would run within its own container, independently from the underlying host configuration.
Storage-wise, we went with Amazon S3 and ditched any pre-existing local or network storage people used to deal with in our legacy systems. On the database side: Amazon RDS / MySQL initially. Ultimately migrated to Amazon RDS for Aurora / MySQL when it got released. Once again, here you need a managed service your cloud provider handles for you.
Future improvements / technology decisions included:
Caching: Amazon ElastiCache / Memcached CDN: Amazon CloudFront Systems Integration: Segment / Zapier Data-warehousing: Amazon Redshift BI: Amazon Quicksight / Superset Search: Elasticsearch / Amazon Elasticsearch Service / Algolia Monitoring: New Relic
As our usage grows, patterns changed, and/or our business needs evolved, my role as Engineering Manager then Director of Engineering was also to ensure my team kept on learning and innovating, while delivering on business value.
One of these innovations was to get ourselves into Serverless : Adopting AWS Lambda was a big step forward. At the time, only available for Node.js (Not Ruby ) but a great way to handle cost efficiency, unpredictable traffic, sudden bursts of traffic... Ultimately you want the whole chain of services involved in a call to be serverless, and that's when we've started leveraging Amazon DynamoDB on these projects so they'd be fully scalable.
Akamai
related Akamai posts
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related MaxCDN posts
When my SSL cert MaxCDN was expiring on my personal site I decided it was a good time to revamp some things. Since GitHub Services is depreciated I can no longer have #CDN cache purges automated among other things. So I decided on the following: GitHub Pages, Netlify, Let's Encrypt and Jekyll. Staying the same was Bootstrap, jQuery, Grunt & #GoogleFonts.
What's awesome about GitHub Pages is that it has a #CDN (Fastly) built-in and anytime you push to master, it purges the cache instantaneously without you have to do anything special. Netlify is magic, I highly recommend it to anyone using #StaticSiteGenerators.
For the most part, everything went smoothly. The only things I had issues with were the following:
- If you want to point
www
to GitHub Pages you need to rename the repo towww
- If you edit something in the
_config.yml
you need to restartbundle exec jekyll s
or changes won't show - I had to disable the Grunt
htmlmin
module. I replaced it with Jekyll layout that compresses HTML for #webperf
Last but certainly not least, I made a donation to Let's Encrypt. If you use their service consider doing it too: https://letsencrypt.org/donate/
We migrated the hosting of our CDN, which is used to serve the JavaScript Error collection agent, from Amazon CloudFront to MaxCDN. During our test, we found MaxCDN to be more reliable and less expensive for serving he file.
The reports and controls were also considerably better.