wget
Hacker ApprovedRanked 2 of 5 HTTP clients by recommenders
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.
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.
20 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 19
- criticize it
- 1
- approval share
- 95%
Recommended in 10 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 19 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 19 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 10 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Mirrors websites for offline access
“a pretty widely used HTTP client that is able to mirror links for offline access”
Comment from 8 Mar 2026 in “CLI RSS/Atom feed reader inspired by Taskwarrior, synced using Git” “Why not use wget to mirror the website?”
Comment from 7 Dec 2025 in “I failed to recreate the 1996 Space Jam website with Claude” “Just ask AI how to mirror w/ wget”
Comment from 2 Jan 2026 in “Ask HN: How does one scrape a website?” - Comment from 15 Sep 2026 in “An update on Wayback Machine access”
Reliable, resumable downloads from the terminal
“I prefer wget -c URL over firefox download any time.”
Comment from 13 Oct 2026 in “Making big downloads resumable in Firefox” “Previously I was using wget, which was very reliable”
Comment from 16 Oct 2026 in “Muse Spark Open” Fetches links from the command line
“you can use curl, wget, aria2 etc to access online content”
Comment from 27 Jun 2026 in “Linux on Older Hardware: The Complete Revival Guide” “then use wget on the machine you want the file on”
Comment from 13 Oct 2026 in “Making big downloads resumable in Firefox” “Or just copy link and wget.”
Comment from 6 Mar 2026 in “Google Safe Browsing missed 84% of phishing sites we found in February” Widely used and well maintained
“a pretty widely used HTTP client that is able to mirror links for offline access”
Comment from 8 Mar 2026 in “CLI RSS/Atom feed reader inspired by Taskwarrior, synced using Git” “well-understood, well-maintained tools”
Comment from 14 Aug 2026 in “Choose Boring Technology (2015)”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Obscure .wget-hsts file confuses people
“.wget-hsts? What the fuck is even that?”
Comment from 26 Apr 2026 in “My .config Ship of Theseus”
Other HTTP clients people recommend
The four most recommended other HTTP clients, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| curl | 100 | 26 | 79% | 12 | — | Approved |
| wgetThis page | 19 | 1 | 95% | 10 | — | Approved |
| HTTPie | 7 | 1 | 88% | 6 | — | — |
| curl-impersonate | 5 | 1 | 83% | 4 | — | — |
| lgogdownloader | 5 | 0 | 100% | 2 | — | — |
What people said
17 of the 20 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Previously I was using wget, which was very reliable”
“then use wget on the machine you want the file on”
“I prefer wget -c URL over firefox download any time.”
“isn't that what wget -m does?”
“well-understood, well-maintained tools”
“Just set your user agent to wget.”
“you can use curl, wget, aria2 etc to access online content”
“.wget-hsts? What the fuck is even that?”
“because it prints the addresses and tries to connect to them in turn, printing every error”
“a pretty widely used HTTP client that is able to mirror links for offline access”
“Or just copy link and wget.”
“I find those programs awkward to use”
“I don't think that's being a dick for old-web sites that still exist today.”
“Far better is just telling your computer that you want it to shutdown after the download finished”
“Just ask AI how to mirror w/ wget”
“picking a good name for a program that gets things from the web”
“Why not use wget to mirror the website?”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.