htcat
A parallel and pipelined HTTP GET utility for high-speed data transfers, optimized for fast network interconnects.
What is htcat?
htcat is a command-line utility that performs parallel, pipelined HTTP GET requests to maximize download speeds, especially over high-bandwidth networks. It splits files into multiple range requests and emits bytes as soon as they are available, enabling efficient streaming into downstream command-line tools like tar. It is optimized for scenarios where large files are processed in pipelines, trading memory usage for lower latency and higher throughput.
System administrators, DevOps engineers, and developers working in high-bandwidth environments (e.g., cloud infrastructure like AWS EC2 to S3) who need to download and process large files efficiently in shell pipelines. It is also suitable for users requiring fast TLS-enabled transfers where traditional tools like curl underperform.
Developers choose htcat for its ability to significantly outperform tools like curl in TLS-enabled transfers, as shown in benchmarks, and its pipelined output that allows parallel processing with downstream tools. Its adaptive partitioning and defragmentation optimize for both speed and contiguous data emission, making it ideal for high-throughput data retrieval scenarios.
Overview
Parallel and Pipelined HTTP GET Utility
Use Cases
Best For
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