The ultra-lightweight Node.js HTTP client


Keywords
http, https, request, fetch, ajax, url, uri, http-client, javascript, node, nodejs, npm, phin
License
MIT
Install
npm install phin@2.9.1

Documentation

phin logo


The lightweight Node.js HTTP client

Full documentation | GitHub | NPM

Deprecation warning

Some versions of this package are deprecated and shouldn't be used. Be sure you are using a non-deprecated, supported version of the package.

Simple Usage

const p = require('phin')

const res = await p('https://ethanent.me')

console.log(res.body)

Note that the above should be in an async context! Phin also provides an unpromisified version of the library.

Install

npm install phin

Why Phin?

Phin is relied upon by important projects and large companies. The hundreds of contributors at Less, for example, depend on Phin as part of their development process.

Also, Phin is very lightweight. To compare to other libraries, see Phin vs. the Competition.

Quick Demos

Simple POST:

await p({
	url: 'https://ethanent.me',
	method: 'POST',
	data: {
		hey: 'hi'
	}
})

Unpromisified Usage

const p = require('phin').unpromisified

p('https://ethanent.me', (err, res) => {
	if (!err) console.log(res.body)
})

Simple parsing of JSON:

// (In async function in this case.)

const res = await p({
	'url': 'https://ethanent.me/name',
	'parse': 'json'
})

console.log(res.body.first)

Default Options

const ppostjson = p.defaults({
	'method': 'POST',
	'parse': 'json',
	'timeout': 2000
})

// In async function...

const res = await ppostjson('https://ethanent.me/somejson')
// ^ An options object could also be used here to set other options.

// Do things with res.body?

Custom Core HTTP Options

Phin allows you to set core HTTP options.

await p({
	'url': 'https://ethanent.me/name',
	'core': {
		'agent': myAgent // Assuming you'd already created myAgent earlier.
	}
})

Full Documentation

There's a lot more which can be done with the Phin library.

See the Phin documentation.

Phin vs. the Competition

Phin is a very lightweight library, yet it contains all of the common HTTP client features included in competing libraries!

Here's a size comparison table:

Package Size
request request package size
superagent superagent package size
got got package size
axios axios package size
isomorphic-fetch isomorphic-fetch package size
r2 r2 package size
node-fetch node-fetch package size
phin phin package size