rock-req
v5.2.1
Ultra-light (150 LOC, No dependencies) & Ultra-fast request library with reliable retry on failure, http/https, redirects, gzip/deflate/brotli, extensible, proxy, streams, JSON mode, forms, timeout
2.8K/weekUpdated 2 months agoMITUnpacked: 16.5 KB
Published by David Grelaud & Feross Aboukhadijeh
npm install rock-req
Rock-req
⭐️⭐️ Ensure your HTTP requests always reach their destination as efficiently as possible! ⭐️⭐️
Tested on Mac, Linux, Windows with NodeJS 16, 18, 19, 20, 22, 24, 25
[![npm][npm-image]][npm-url] [![ci][ci-image]][ci-url] [![javascript style guide][standard-image]][standard-url]
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[standard-url]: https://standardjs.com
[npm-image]: https://img.shields.io/npm/v/rock-req.svg
[npm-url]: https://npmjs.org/package/rock-req
[ci-url]: https://github.com/carboneio/rock-req/actions
[ci-image]: https://img.shields.io/github/actions/workflow/status/carboneio/rock-req/ci.yml?branch=master
🔥 Why?
In most existing libraries (2025):
- Managing reliable retries is difficult, tricky with streams and not battle-tested
- Using multiple forward proxies has several benefits like higher availability and increased bandwidth but
Intercepting retries to use another Egress controller between two requests is not possible.
- Many request libraries are heavy: node-fetch, superagent, needle, got, axios, request
- Lightweight alternatives are not as light as they claim due to dependencies (simple-get, tiny-req, puny-req, phin, ...)
⚡️ Rock-req solves these problems with only 150 lines of code and zero dependencies
It also supports many features:
- Follows redirects
- Handles gzip/deflate/brotli responses
- Modify defaults
- Extend and create new instances
- Automatically destroy input/output stream on error and premature close event
- Advanced retries
- URL Rewrite
- Ultra-fast (> 20k req/s)
- Keep Alive by default (3000ms)
- Composable
- Timeouts
- Promises interface
- HTTPS / HTTP
- Composes well with npm packages for features like cookies, proxies, form data, & OAuth
- Keep 98% of the simple-get API (fork source)
When the callback is called, the request is 100% finished, even with streams.
🚀 Benchmark Rock-req vs got, axios, node-fetch, phin, simple-get, superagent, ...
Stop using "slow-by-default" and "false-light" HTTP request libraries!
2025-11-14 on MacBook Pro M4 Max with all dependencies updated on this date
| Library | NodeJS 22 | NodeJS 24 | NodeJS 25 | Bun v1.3.2 | LOC (2025/2023) |
|--------------|-----------:|------------:|---------:|-----------:|----------------:|
| rock-req 🙋♂️ | 26842 ops | 26782 ops | 26179 ops | 21229 ops | 152 (+5%) |
| simple-get | 26532 ops | 26802 ops | 25954 ops | 21187 ops | 317 (+0%) |
| axios | 4110 ops | 3999 ops | 3996 ops | 14788 ops | 19883 (+42%) |
| got | 14786 ops | 15234 ops | 15149 ops | 15287 ops | 16904 (+83%) |
| fetch | 15676 ops | 16252 ops | 15784 ops | 27675 ops | 54211 (+306%) |
| request | 17102 ops | 14586 ops | 14346 ops | 18202 ops | 58057 (+24%) |
| superagent | 3862 ops | 3979 ops | 3889 ops | 19271 ops | 31913 (+98%) |
| phin | 15549 ops | 14160 ops | 13915 ops | 15430 ops | 20064 (+5960%) |
| _undici_* | 32480 ops | 33272 ops | 32738 ops | 25961 ops | 23235 (+43%) |
2023-04-19 on Macbook Pro M1 Max with all dependencies updated on this date
| Library | NodeJS 16 | NodeJS 18 | NodeJS 20* | Size deps inc. |
| ------------ |--------------:|--------------:| --------------:| --------------:|
| rock-req 🙋♂️ | 22816 ops | 21797 ops | 21964 ops | 144 LOC |
| simple-get | 2937 ops | 3260 ops | 21258 ops | 317 LOC |
| axios | 5090 ops | 4910 ops | 3196 ops | 13983 LOC |
| got | 2163 ops | 1762 ops | 9961 ops | 9227 LOC |
| fetch | 2101 ops | 2102 ops | 2020 ops | 13334 LOC |
| request | 2249 ops | 1869 ops | 15815 ops | 46572 LOC |
| superagent | 2776 ops | 2100 ops | 2895 ops | 16109 LOC |
| phin | 3178 ops | 1164 ops | 21299 ops | 331 LOC |
| _undici_* | 24095 ops | 24378 ops | 24191 ops | 16225 LOC |
> LOC = Lines of Code, including dependencies (excluding dev dependencies)
> ops = request per second
> Since Node.js 20, HTTP keep-alive is activated by default, just like in rock-req. This improves the overall performance of all frameworks.
> undici is a low-level API and a faster alternative to the native Node.js HTTP module. It represents the performance ceiling for Node.js.
> rock-req uses only the native Node.js HTTP module and provides many high-level features — far more than phin and simple-get — with fewer lines of code.
> Interestingly, the differences are less visible on Bun.sh.
Install
``bash`
npm install rock-req
Documentation
The full documentation is here to reduce Node package file size.
Supporters
This packaged in maintained by Carbone:
Thank you Feross Aboukhadijeh, creator of simple-get`