From Ruby to Elixir

Decide on Which HTTP Client to Use

HTTP clients in Elixir have a long history. Even before Elixir, there were Erlang clients that are still used to this day in Elixir apps. Knowing the whole history doesn’t provide you with much benefit, but it will be helpful to understand the different abstraction levels that clients can sit on top of.

Once you understand that, we can take a look at the major players and where they sit. There isn’t a single right answer in the end, but you’ll have a solid grasp of why we pick Req as our preferred client.

The Various Levels of Abstraction

Let’s walk through the different levels of abstraction from the lowest to the highest.

Sockets

At the lowest level, HTTP requests are made over sockets. These sockets usually ...