HTTPie Command in Linux: Modern Alternative to curl for REST APIs

The httpie command on Linux is similar to CURL, but its use is simpler. It allows you to download files, and also connect to web APIs to test REST or Javascript Backend web applications.

It allows you to interact with HTTP servers, RESTful APIs, and web services.

To install on Ubuntu or on Debian:

$ apt-get install httpie

To install on Red Hat/CentOS/Fedora:

$ yum install httpie

Once installed, its use is simple, just inform the URL:

$ http 'https://api.openweathermap.org/data/2.5/weather?q=Belo%20Horizonte,PT&appid=9908ae7bbb3c530f54efdec77ac3ccde' HTTP/1.1 200 OKAccess-Control-Allow-Credentials: trueAccess-Control-Allow-Methods: GET, POSTAccess-Control-Allow-Origin: *Connection: keep-aliveContent-Length: 476Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8Date: Tue, 12 May 2020 22:26:42 GMTServer: openrestyX-Cache-Key: /data/2.5/weather?q=belo%20horizonte,pt{    "base": "stations",    "clouds": {        "all": 81    },

The http command already does the job of informing the header and formatting the JSON, without the need to inform additional parameters and commands.

It allows passing POST parameters:

$ http -f POST httpbin.org/post hello=WorldHTTP/1.1 200 OKAccess-Control-Allow-Credentials: trueAccess-Control-Allow-Origin: *Connection: keep-aliveContent-Length: 488Content-Type: application/jsonDate: Tue, 12 May 2020 22:32:16 GMTServer: gunicorn/19.9.0{    "args": {},    "data": "",    "files": {},    "form": {        "hello": "World"    },    "headers": {        "Accept": "*/*",        "Accept-Encoding": "gzip, deflate",        "Content-Length": "11",        "Content-Type": "application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=utf-8",        "Host": "httpbin.org",        "User-Agent": "HTTPie/2.1.0",        "X-Amzn-Trace-Id": "Root=1-5ebb23f0-c052d8b2169a5304df2fee88"    },    "json": null,    "origin": "192.241.133.165",    "url": "http://httpbin.org/post"}

A file can also be sent simply, using redirection:

$ http httpbin.org/post < arquivo.json

Similarly, a file can be downloaded and saved using output redirection:

$ http httpbin.org/image/png > image.webp

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