# wget

19 Hacker News commenters recommended wget and 1 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 10 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Free command-line tool for downloading files and mirroring websites for offline use; people trust it for reliable, resumable downloads. One commenter finds its hidden .wget-hsts file confusing.

## Why people recommend it

- Mirrors websites for offline access (4 comments): "a pretty widely used HTTP client that is able to mirror links for offline access" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47298275)) "Why not use wget to mirror the website?" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46184279)) "Just ask AI how to mirror w/ wget" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46465628))
- Reliable, resumable downloads from the terminal (2 comments): "I prefer wget -c URL over firefox download any time." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50065772)) "Previously I was using wget, which was very reliable" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50118775))
- Fetches links from the command line (3 comments): "you can use curl, wget, aria2 etc to access online content" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48696576)) "then use wget on the machine you want the file on" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50074587)) "Or just copy link and wget." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47269555))
- Widely used and well maintained (2 comments): "a pretty widely used HTTP client that is able to mirror links for offline access" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47298275)) "well-understood, well-maintained tools" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49294518))

## What people warn about

- Obscure .wget-hsts file confuses people (1 comments): ".wget-hsts? What the fuck is even that?" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47911900))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [curl](https://hackerapproved.com/p/curl.md): 100 recommend
- [HTTPie](https://hackerapproved.com/p/httpie.md): 7 recommend
- [curl-impersonate](https://hackerapproved.com/p/curl-impersonate.md): 5 recommend

## Cite as

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