requests

What it is

Requests is an elegant and simple HTTP library for Python, built for human beings. It simplifies the process of making HTTP requests in a way that's easy to use and understand.

Requests stands out as the most user-friendly and widely adopted library for making HTTP requests in Python, offering simplicity without sacrificing functionality.

When it fits — and when it doesn’t

Known weaknesses

Each one links to the public issue, changelog or docs page it came from, where we have one.

1. 01

   Session.verify=False is ignored when the REQUESTS_CA_BUNDLE environment variable is set, causing SSL verification failures despite explicit configuration.

   A long-standing open issue with 25 reactions shows that setting session.verify=False does not override the REQUESTS_CA_BUNDLE environment variable, leading to unexpected SSL errors.

   Source: GitHub issue #3829 ↗
2. 02

   The library does not respect the no_proxy environment variable or proxies['no'] parameter, forcing requests through proxies even for whitelisted URLs.

   An open issue with 16 reactions reports that requests to whitelisted URLs are not bypassing proxies as expected, causing connection errors in environments like Tor.

   Source: GitHub issue #4871 ↗
3. 03

   Requests suffers from a memory leak when using sessions with proxies, causing programs to consume all RAM until they stop working.

   An open issue with 11 reactions and 25 comments documents a memory leak where using requests.Session with proxies causes the program to consume all available RAM.

   Source: GitHub issue #4601 ↗
4. 04

   The presence of the simplejson library causes requests to fail when using standard json.JSONDecoder due to inconsistent argument handling.

   An open issue with 9 reactions notes that requests preferentially imports simplejson, leading to errors when users attempt to use the standard library's json.JSONDecoder because of inconsistent arguments.

   Source: GitHub issue #4842 ↗
5. 05

   Requests overrides the Authorization header with credentials from a .netrc file, even when a bearer token is explicitly provided.

   An open issue with 7 reactions describes a design flaw where the library overrides a user-provided bearer token with user/password credentials from a netrc file.

   Source: GitHub issue #3929 ↗

What it does well

• Easy-to-use API for making HTTP requests.

• Automatic handling of cookies, headers, and redirects.

• Supports sessions with persistent parameters.

• Built-in JSON encoding/decoding.

Pricing

Free tier

YesOpen source — free to use

Paid from

$0

Model

Flat rate

Enterprise plan

No

Pricing not independently confirmed — check the vendor’s page.