The cURL project produces two products: The first is libcurl, a free and easy-to-use client-side URL transfer library, supporting DICT, FILE, FTP, FTPS, GOPHER, HTTP, HTTPS, IMAP, IMAPS, LDAP, LDAPS, POP3, POP3S, RTMP, RTSP, SCP, SFTP, SMTP, SMTPS, TELNET and TFTP. The second product is curl, a command line tool for getting or sending files using URL syntax.
curl features include:
- Config file support.
- Multiple URLs in a single command line.
- Range “globbing” support: [0-13], {one, two, three}.
- Multiple file upload on a single command line.
- Custom maximum transfer rate.
- Redirectable stderr.
- Metalink support.
libcurl features include:
- Full URL syntax with no length limit.
- Custom maximum download time.
- Custom least download speed acceptable.
- Custom output result after completion.
- Guesses protocol from host name unless specified.
- Uses .netrc.
- Progress bar with time statistics while downloading.
- “Standard” proxy environment variables support.
- Selectable network interface for outgoing traffic.
- IPv6 support.
- Persistent connections.
- socks5 support.
- Supports user name and password in proxy environment variables.
- Operations through proxy “tunnel” (using CONNECT).
- Support for large files (>2GB and >4GB) during upload and download.
- Replaceable memory functions (malloc, free, realloc, etc).
- Asynchronous name resolving.
- Both a push and a pull style interface.
- International domain names.
Website: curl.se
Support: GitHub
Developer: Daniel Stenberg
License: MIT/X derivate license
curl is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Alternatives to curl | |
|---|---|
| Wget2 | Successor of Wget |
| Wget | Makes retrieving large files or mirroring entire web or FTP sites easy |
| aria2 | Multi-protocol and multi-source command-line download utility |
| HTTPie | HTTP client with an intuitive user interface |
| curlie | The power of curl, the ease of use of httpie |
| xh | Fast and friendly tool for sending HTTP requests |
| hurl | Run and test HTTP requests with plain text |
| TerminusDM | User-friendly terminal interface for managing your downloads efficiently |
| getparty | HTTP download manager with multi-parts |
| Alternatives to Wget | |
|---|---|
| Wget2 | Successor of Wget |
| curl | Tool and library for transferring data with URLs |
| aria2 | Multi-protocol and multi-source command-line download utility |
| HTTPie | HTTP client with an intuitive user interface |
| curlie | The power of curl, the ease of use of httpie |
| xh | Fast and friendly tool for sending HTTP requests |
| hurl | Run and test HTTP requests with plain text |
| TerminusDM | User-friendly terminal interface for managing your downloads efficiently |
| getparty | HTTP download manager with multi-parts |
| Command line HTTP clients | |
|---|---|
| HTTPie | Command line interface, cURL-like tool for humans |
| aria2 | Multi-protocol and multi-source command-line download utility |
| Wget2 | Successor of Wget |
| hurl | Run and test HTTP requests with plain text |
| curl | Command line tool for transferring data with URL syntax. Transfer library too |
| xh | Fast and friendly tool for sending HTTP requests |
| Wget | Retrieves content from web servers |
| curlie | The power of curl, the ease of use of httpie |
| TerminusDM | User-friendly terminal interface for managing your downloads efficiently. |
| getparty | HTTP download manager with multi-parts |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
 Explore our comprehensive directory of recommended free and open source software. Our carefully curated collection spans every major software category.This directory is part of our ongoing series of informative articles for Linux enthusiasts. It features hundreds of detailed reviews, along with open source alternatives to proprietary solutions from major corporations such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, and Autodesk. You’ll also find interesting projects to try, hardware coverage, free programming books and tutorials, and much more. Know a useful open source Linux program that we haven’t covered yet? Let us know by completing this form. |