Requests vs httpx: Which Python HTTP Client Wins for Your Tests?

Introduction

In the Python API testing field, requests and httpx are two very popular HTTP client libraries. They can both be used to send HTTP requests, handle responses, and perform interface automation testing.

1. Brief Overview

2. Core Feature Comparison

3. Usage Scenario Comparison

✅ Recommended scenarios for using requests :

You only need synchronous API testing

The project is already built on requests, no refactoring needed

The team is familiar with requests, low maintenance cost

No need for HTTP/2 or async capabilities

Performance requirements are not high, stability is preferred

🔧 Example code:

import requests
response = requests.get("https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts/1")
print(response.json())

✅ Recommended scenarios for using httpx :

Need asynchronous testing (e.g., with FastAPI, Starlette)

Need HTTP/2 support (e.g., gRPC-over-HTTP2, some cloud service APIs)

Want a modern, modular client design

Want unified sync and async call style for better extensibility

Require finer timeout control or better type hints

🔧 Example code (synchronous):

import httpx
response = httpx.get("https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts/1")
print(response.json())

🔧 Example code (asynchronous):

import httpx
import asyncio
async def fetch():
    async with httpx.AsyncClient() as client:
        response = await client.get("https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts/1")
        print(response.json())
asyncio.run(fetch())

4. Summary Comparison Table

5. Development Trend Analysis

6. Final Recommendations

7. Supplement: Installation

Installation commands:

# Install requests
pip install requests
# Install httpx (with async support)
pip install httpx

Conclusion

If you are new to test development, learning requests first is a safe choice.

If you already master synchronous API testing and want to improve skills—especially asynchronous testing, HTTP/2, high-performance concurrency—strongly consider learning httpx.

In real projects, you can combine both libraries and switch flexibly according to needs.