HTTP client for Rust: top libraries and tools

HTTP client for Rust: overview of the best libraries

Rust is a systems programming language gaining popularity in web development and building high-load services. One of the key tasks of any network application is sending HTTP requests. In this article, we will review the best libraries for working with HTTP in Rust, their features, performance, and usage examples. The material will be useful for both beginners and experienced developers choosing a tool for their project.

1. reqwest — the universal choice

reqwest is the most popular HTTP library in the Rust ecosystem. It is built on top of hyper and tokio, but provides a high-level, ergonomic API. It supports both asynchronous (default) and blocking modes (via the blocking feature).

Key features:

• Async and sync requests
• Automatic JSON handling (serialization/deserialization via serde)
• Support for TLS, cookies, proxies
• Redirects and timeouts
• File uploads and multipart/form-data

Example of an async GET request:

use reqwest;use serde::Deserialize;

#[derive(Deserialize, Debug)]struct User {    id: u32,    name: String,    email: String,}

#[tokio::main]async fn main() -> Result<(), reqwest::Error> {    let user: User = reqwest::get("https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/users/1")        .await?        .json()        .await?;    println!("{:?}", user);    Ok(())}

Example of a blocking POST request:

use reqwest::blocking::Client;use serde_json::json;

fn main() -> Result<(), reqwest::Error> {    let client = Client::new();    let resp = client.post("https://httpbin.org/post")        .json(&json!({"key": "value"}))        .send()?;    println!("Status: {}", resp.status());    Ok(())}

Pros: huge community, excellent documentation, flexibility. Cons: relatively large binary size, dependency on tokio.

2. ureq — minimalist sync client

ureq is a lightweight, simple library without async. It is ideal for scripts, CLI utilities, and cases where tokio is not needed. It works "out of the box" without runtime configuration.

Features:

• Sync requests only
• Minimal dependencies
• Support for HTTPS, cookies, redirects
• Built-in JSON (via the json feature)

Example:

use ureq;

fn main() -> Result<(), ureq::Error> {    let body: String = ureq::get("https://api.github.com/repos/rust-lang/rust")        .call()?        .into_string()?;    println!("{}", &body[..200]);    Ok(())}

Pros: simplicity, small footprint, fast compilation time. Cons: no async, limited capabilities for complex scenarios.

3. hyper — low-level foundation

hyper is the fundamental HTTP library for Rust, on which reqwest and many others are built. It provides full control over the protocol but requires more code and understanding of async.

When to use: if you need maximum performance, non-standard protocols, or are building your own HTTP framework.

Example of a simple client:

use hyper::{Client, Uri};use hyper::body::HttpBody as _;use tokio;

#[tokio::main]async fn main() -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {    let client = Client::new();    let uri: Uri = "