Requests is one of the most popular Python libraries for making HTTP requests, with over 50,000 stars on GitHub and millions of weekly downloads. But it is not part of the Python standard library.
Python has a built-in module called urllib that provides some HTTP capabilities. However, it is low-level and requires a lot of code to make simple requests.
Requests provides an elegant and simple API for making HTTP calls in Python. It handles issues like:
Requests wraps urllib and handles all the nitty-gritty details, making it far easier for Python developers to work with web APIs and services.
To use Requests, you need to install it via pip:
pip install requests
Then you can import and use it in your code:
import requests
response = requests.get('<https://api.example.com/data>')
So in summary:
While Requests provides a much nicer interface for making HTTP requests, you still need to install it yourself - it does not come as part of the Python standard library.