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Best Python HTTP Packages

Best Python HTTP Packages

Table of Contents

1. Requests: HTTP for Humans

The Requests library is one of the most popular python http packages, providing a simple, yet powerful, interface for sending all kinds of HTTP requests. It is well known for its user-friendliness and flexibility.

Features:

  • Simple and consistent API
  • Automatic handling of HTTP connections
  • Support for various types of authentication
  • JSON response content decoding
  • Session objects for request persistence

Code Example:

import requests

response = requests.get('https://api.github.com')
print(response.status_code)
print(response.json())

2. HTTPX: The Next Generation HTTP Client

HTTPX is a fully featured HTTP client for Python 3, which provides async capabilities and is broadly compatible with the ‘requests’ API.

Features:

  • Support for synchronous and asynchronous requests
  • HTTP/1.1 and HTTP/2 support
  • Ability to make parallel requests with async
  • Timeout configurations

Code Example:

import httpx

response = httpx.get('https://www.python.org')
print(response.status_code)
print(response.text)

3. AIOHTTP: Asynchronous HTTP Client/Server

AIOHTTP is an asynchronous HTTP network library that enables client and server web sockets within Python utilizing asyncio.

Features:

  • Supports both client and server side of the HTTP protocol
  • Supports both WebSocket and Server-Sent Events
  • Enables the creation of a HTTP server

Code Example:

import aiohttp
import asyncio

async def fetch(session, url):
    async with session.get(url) as response:
        return await response.text()

async def main():
    async with aiohttp.ClientSession() as session:
        html = await fetch(session, 'http://python.org')
        print(html)

loop = asyncio.get_event_loop()
loop.run_until_complete(main())

4. Tornado: Asynchronous Network Library

Tornado is a Python web framework and asynchronous networking library, originally developed at FriendFeed.

Features:

  • Non-blocking HTTP client/server framework
  • Excellent support for WebSockets
  • Asynchronous I/O for scalable applications

Code Example:

import tornado.httpclient

def handle_request(response):
    if response.error:
        print("Error:", response.error)
    else:
        print(response.body)

http_client = tornado.httpclient.AsyncHTTPClient()
http_client.fetch("http://www.google.com", handle_request)

5. Urllib3: Powerful HTTP Client

Urllib3 is a powerful HTTP client for Python that comes with many features such as thread safety, connection pooling, client-side SSL/TLS verification, and more.

Features:

  • Connection pooling
  • File post support
  • Socket-level and SSL certificate verification

Code Example:

import urllib3

http = urllib3.PoolManager()
r = http.request('GET', 'http://httpbin.org/robots.txt')
print(r.status)
print(r.data)

References

Summary

In this post, we have explored the best python http packages that can help you manage HTTP requests in your Python applications. With Requests, you get a user-friendly interface for synchronous requests. HTTPX extends the capabilities with async support and HTTP/2, while AIOHTTP is ideal for both async client and server development. Tornado offers an asynchronous networking library with great support for WebSockets, and Urllib3 includes advanced features such as connection pooling and SSL verification. Choosing the right library largely depends on your project’s needs and whether you require asynchronous support or a simpler, synchronous approach.

 

ByRavishanker Kusuma
Updated on