Best Libraries for Making HTTP Requests in Flutter (2022)

This article walks you through a list of the best open-source packages that can help us a lot when making HTTP requests in Flutter applications. Without any further ado, let’s explore the things that matter.

Http

• Pub likes: 3910+
• GitHub stars: 735+
• License: BSD-3-Clause
• Written in: Dart
• Links: Pub page | GitHub repo | Official docs

This package is published by the Dart team currently the most-liked HTTP packages on pub.dev. It provides a high-level API that can make your life much easier when dealing with network tasks. You can install it by running the following command:Advertisements

flutter pub add http

Sample usage:

import 'package:http/http.dart' as http;

void sendPostRequest() async {
  final url = Uri.parse('https://test.kindacode.com/api/v3/');
  final response = await http.post(url, body: {'email': 'example@kindacode.com', 'name': 'Mr Happy'});
  print('Response status: ${response.statusCode}');
  print('Response body: ${response.body}');
}

The plugin supports retrying requests. You can use the RetryClient class to retry failing requests:

import 'package:http/http.dart' as http;
import 'package:http/retry.dart';

Future<void> bootstrap() async {
  final client = RetryClient(http.Client());
  try {
    print(await client.read(Uri.parse('http://test.kindacode.com/api/v3/')));
  } finally {
    client.close();
  }
}

Dio

• Pub likes: 3300+
• GitHub stars: 10.5k+
• License: MIT
• Written in: Dart
• Links: Pub page | GitHub repo | API reference

Dio is the fastest-growing HTTP package in the Flutter ecosystem. It’s super powerful and simple to use. The package brings us many extremely useful features:

• Global configuration
• Interceptors
• FormData
• Request Cancellation
• Retrying Requests
• File Downloading
• Timeout
• Https certificate verification
• Http2

AdvertisementsYou can install Dio by running:

flutter pub add dio

And use it without writing much code:

import 'package:dio/dio.dart';

void getData() async {
  try {
    var response = await Dio().get('http://www.example.com');
    print(response);
  } catch (e) {
    print(e);
  }
}

Dio has several extensions:Advertisements

• dio_cookie_manager: For working with cookie
• dio_http2_adapter: For http2 stuff

Retrofit

• Pub likes: 650+
• GitHub stars: 720+
• License: MIT
• Written in: Dart, Ruby, Swift, Kotlin, Python
• Links: Pub page | GitHub repo | API reference

Retrofit is a type conversion dio client generator. It lets you write code with @Something like decorators in TypeScript. For example:

@JsonSerializable()
class MyClass {}

@PATCH("your-api-endpoint")
Future<Task> updateTaskPart(
      @Path() String id, @Body() Map<String, dynamic> map);

@PUT("your-api-endpoint")
Future<Task> updateTask(@Path() String id, @Body() Task task);

@DELETE("your-api-endpoint")
Future<void> deleteTask(@Path() String id);

@POST("your-api-endpoint")
Future<Task> createTask(@Body() Task task);

For more details, please see retrofit’s docs.

Chopper

• Pub likes: 360+
• GitHub stars: 560+
• License: MIT
• Written in: Dart, Shell
• Links: Pub page | GitHub repo | API reference

Similiar to Retrofit, Chopper is another HTTP client generator for Dart and Flutter. You will need to install chopper, chopper_generator, and build_runner. For more detailed information about using Chopper, please see its official documentation.

Wrapping Up

We’ve gone over the list of most-liked HTTP client packages for Flutter. If you’d like to gain more knowledge about Flutter and explore more new and fascinating stuff to work better with the framework, take a look at the following articles:

• Creating Masonry Layout in Flutter with Staggered Grid View
• Flutter & Hive Database: CRUD Example
• How to encode/decode JSON in Flutter
• Sorting Lists in Dart and Flutter (5 Examples)
• Flutter and Firestore Database: CRUD example

You can also check out our Flutter category page or Dart category page for the latest tutorials and examples.