# httpx

10 Hacker News commenters recommended httpx and 22 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 4 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Recommended as a clean, modern Python HTTP client with async and newer HTTP support; the most common caveat is slow maintainer response, with critics saying issues and PRs are ignored.

## Why people recommend it

- Could become the default Python library (2 comments): "the library is really nice and could have become the default HTTP library" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47517561)) "httpx has so much potential to be the default Python http library" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47514831))
- Replaces other clients in projects (2 comments): "we ended up replacing that particular client with it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48130512)) "The httpx maintainer closed off access to issues and discussions on the repo, has been ignoring PRs, and hasn't updated it in a half a year." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49478408))

## What people warn about

- Maintainers ignore issues and PRs (4 comments): "The httpx maintainer closed off access to issues and discussions on the repo, has been ignoring PRs, and hasn't updated it in a half a year." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49478408)) "I personally treat it as a supply chain risk, as there are no longer any way to report any bugs and security problems." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47193564)) "The fix was ignored and there was never any release since November 2024." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47515106))
- Upcoming 1.0 brings breaking changes (4 comments): "it can easily put your production project to suddenly break in a bad way without valid reason" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47514931)) "it's currently working towards a 1.0 release which will be full of breaking changes" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49477508)) "currently working towards a 1.0 release which will be full of breaking changes" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49477780))
- Thread-safety and performance problems (3 comments): "httpx (great, but currently struggles in high throughput scenarii for years with no visible solution merged so far)." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47362465)) "thread-safety issues (httpx claims to be thread-safe but we hit race conditions in production)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47520456)) "their connection pooling etc implementations are completely broken" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46266515))
- Slower than aiohttp or niquests (2 comments): "from your benchmarks it seems like I should've went with aiohttp for faster async" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46266647)) "niquests easily beat aiohttp just using 10 conn and crush httpx" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47514966))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Requests (Python library)](https://hackerapproved.com/p/requests.md): 23 recommend
- [Axios](https://hackerapproved.com/p/axios.md): 21 recommend
- [Go net/http](https://hackerapproved.com/p/go-net-http.md): 12 recommend
- [libcurl](https://hackerapproved.com/p/libcurl.md): 10 recommend
- [Niquests](https://hackerapproved.com/p/niquests.md): 8 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "httpx", https://hackerapproved.com/p/httpx/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).