The Best Ruby HTTP Clients: An Expert‘s Guide

If you‘re building web applications with Ruby, making HTTP requests is going to be a big part of your job. Whether you‘re integrating with a third-party API, scraping data from websites, or communicating between microservices, you‘ll need a reliable way to send data over the network.

That‘s where Ruby HTTP client libraries come in. These gems abstract away the low-level details of network communication, providing a clean, high-level API for making HTTP requests. A good HTTP client can make the difference between a sleek, performant web app and a buggy, unresponsive one.

In this guide, we‘ll take a comprehensive look at the Ruby HTTP client ecosystem. We‘ll examine the most popular libraries in depth, highlighting their strengths, weaknesses, and ideal use cases. We‘ll also explore some emerging trends and provide guidance on how to choose the right gem for your needs.

But first, let‘s set the stage with some context on HTTP clients in Ruby.

The State of HTTP in Ruby

As of 2024, there are over 50 HTTP-related gems available on RubyGems.org. These range from lightweight, single-purpose libraries to full-featured frameworks. In total, Ruby HTTP gems have been downloaded over 500 million times.

Here‘s a breakdown of the most popular HTTP clients by total downloads:

Source: RubyGems.org, May 2024

As you can see, rest-client and httparty dominate in terms of sheer usage. However, popularity doesn‘t always equal quality. In the following sections, we‘ll dive deeper into these top contenders to see how they really stack up.

The http.rb Gem

First up is the http gem (formerly known as http.rb). Despite its concise name, this library packs a punch. It aims to provide an "easy-to-use API that should be a joy to use" according to its README.

The http gem adopts a chaining style for constructing requests, similar to Python‘s requests library. Here‘s a basic GET request:

require "http"

response = HTTP.get("https://api.example.com/widgets")
puts response.parse["name"]

And here‘s how you would make a POST request with a JSON payload:

require "http"

payload = { name: "My Widget" }
response = HTTP.post("https://api.example.com/widgets", json: payload)
puts response.code

One of the http gem‘s killer features is built-in support for concurrent requests using a connection pool:

require "http"

HTTP.get([
  "https://api.example.com/widgets/1",
  "https://api.example.com/widgets/2",  
  "https://api.example.com/widgets/3"   
], pool_size: 3)

Under the hood, the http gem uses native extensions for parsing, which makes it one of the fastest pure-Ruby HTTP clients available. It‘s also one of the most memory-efficient, with benchmarks showing memory usage 600x lower than some other popular clients.

Source: "HTTP client performance comparison" by Janko Marohnić, July 2021

So what are the downsides? Some developers find the http gem‘s chaining API less intuitive than other clients. It also has a somewhat smaller ecosystem compared to Faraday or httparty.

Still, the http gem‘s focus on simplicity, performance and concurrency make it a solid choice for many projects. It‘s especially well-suited for high-throughput backend services or data scrapers that make a large volume of requests.

Faraday

Next let‘s look at Faraday. This gem takes a different approach than http.rb, focusing on flexibility and extensibility through a middleware-based architecture.

With Faraday, you start by creating a connection object:

require ‘faraday‘

conn = Faraday.new(‘https://api.example.com‘)

You can then use this connection to make requests:

response = conn.get(‘/widgets‘)
puts response.body

Where Faraday really shines is its support for customizing requests with middleware. Middleware are small, reusable pieces of code that can modify the request or response before it‘s sent or received.

For example, you can use middleware to automatically parse JSON responses:

require ‘faraday‘
require ‘faraday_middleware‘

conn = Faraday.new(‘https://api.example.com‘) do |f|
  f.response :json
end

response = conn.get(‘/widgets‘)
puts response.body[‘name‘]

Or to handle authentication:

require ‘faraday‘

conn = Faraday.new(‘https://api.example.com‘) do |f|
  f.request :authorization, ‘Bearer‘, ‘my-api-token‘  
end

Faraday has a large ecosystem of official and third-party middleware for everything from caching to instrumentation to retries. This makes it extremely flexible – you can tailor your HTTP client to fit your app‘s exact needs.

On the performance front, Faraday is no slouch either. In the same benchmark we referenced earlier, Faraday had the fastest POST requests of any of the clients tested.

The main downside of Faraday is its complexity. With so many middleware options, there‘s a steeper learning curve compared to simpler clients. It can also be tempting to over-engineer your setup with too many layers of middleware.

Nonetheless, Faraday is a powerful, professional-grade HTTP client. It‘s a great fit for large, complex projects with evolving requirements. Many popular Ruby gems, like Octokit and Stripe Ruby, use Faraday under the hood.

A Word on net/http

No discussion of Ruby HTTP clients would be complete without mentioning net/http. This is the "default" HTTP client that ships with Ruby as part of the standard library.

net/http has been around since Ruby 1.8 and is still widely used, especially in legacy codebases. However, most Rubyists have since moved on to higher-level gems like the ones covered in this guide.

Why? Well, as Ilya Grigorik, author of the http gem, puts it:

"Net::HTTP is extremely arcane and hard to use […] As a result, the most common path for Ruby developers is to pick one of the many Net::HTTP wrappers, which attempt to hide the complexity through a simplified API."

Source: Ilya Grigorik, "It is time to ditch Net::HTTP", Dec 2012

Indeed, while net/http is certainly usable, it‘s far from user-friendly. Making a basic request requires a lot of boilerplate:

require ‘net/http‘
require ‘json‘

uri = URI(‘https://api.example.com/widgets‘)
response = Net::HTTP.get_response(uri)

puts JSON.parse(response.body)

net/http also falls short on performance. In benchmarks, it‘s consistently one of the slowest HTTP clients, and has a very high memory footprint.

So unless you have a very good reason, we recommend choosing one of the more modern HTTP clients covered here over net/http.

The Best Ruby HTTP Clients Compared

We‘ve taken an in-depth look at some of the top Ruby HTTP client gems. Now let‘s see how they stack up head-to-head.

Source: RubyGems stats and GitHub repositories, May 2024

A few key insights stand out:

• Faraday and http.rb have the most active development, with frequent new releases and a high issue closure rate.
• Faraday has the largest contributor community, reflecting its popularity for complex projects.
• HTTParty remains the most downloaded gem, but has a slower release cadence.
• Excon trails the pack on most measures, but is still a very capable client.
• HTTPX is a newer entrant with promising performance and API design.

So which one should you choose? Here are our recommendations:

• For apps making a large volume of requests, use the http gem. Its speed and efficiency are hard to beat.
• For complex, evolving projects, use Faraday. It‘s infinitely customizable and has a large support community.
• For basic API interactions in smaller apps, HTTParty remains a solid default choice.

Of course, the "right tool for the job" will depend on your app‘s specific needs. When in doubt, try a few clients out and see which one feels most natural for your use case.

The Future of HTTP in Ruby

As we‘ve seen, the Ruby HTTP client ecosystem is thriving, with multiple mature gems catering to different use cases. But where is it headed?

One emerging trend is a convergence towards a more standardized interface. The core teams behind http.rb, Faraday, and HTTPX have collaborated on a shared interface specification. The goal is to make it easier to swap between clients without rewriting your code.

Meanwhile, the venerable Net::HTTP is finally getting an overhaul. Ruby 3.2 will ship with a new version of Net::HTTP that promises better performance and API consistency. This could make the standard library client a more compelling option.

At the application level, more and more Ruby developers are embracing async programming for IO-bound workloads. Tools like async and Falcon bring Node-style concurrency primitives to Ruby. Over time, we expect to see tighter integration between async frameworks and HTTP clients.

Wrapping Up

We‘ve covered a lot of ground in this guide to Ruby HTTP clients. To recap, our key takeaways are:

1. HTTP clients are an essential tool for Ruby web development, with a wide range of options available.
2. The http.rb gem is a top choice for performance-critical, high-volume applications.
3. Faraday is the most flexible and extensible client, well-suited for large, complex projects.
4. HTTParty is a solid default choice for simpler use cases.
5. Avoid Net::HTTP unless you have a specific reason to use it.
6. The future of Ruby HTTP clients includes standardization, async support, and continued performance improvements.

Ultimately, the "best" HTTP client is the one that makes your development experience more joyful and your application more robust. We encourage you to explore the options covered here and find the one that clicks for you.

Happy HTTP requesting!