Superagent vs. Fetch: Which Should You Choose?

Are you starting a new web scraping project in JavaScript and trying to decide between Superagent and Fetch API as your HTTP client?

In this article, you'll find a review of both tools' key features, a comparison of their similarities and differences, and a speed benchmark to help you make an educated decision.

Quick Answer: Fetch API or Superagent?

Superagent and Fetch API are Node.js HTTP clients for sending requests and handling responses during web development or JavaScript web scraping.

One of the main differences between the two is that Fetch API is a built-in JavaScript interface, while Superagent is an external library that requires an installation. But which one will be better for your next project? Here's a quick recommendation:

• Choose Superagent if you want a feature-rich library to handle complex scraping requirements like callbacks and request retries. It also supports code chaining to enhance readability. Superagent is a better choice when functionality matters to you more than speed.
• Use the Fetch API if your web scraper doesn't require advanced functionalities and you want to make quick requests without depending on an external library. Fetch is suitable for simple tasks where speed is more important than functionality.

The table below summarizes the tools' features and differences:

Now, let's go to a more detailed comparison of both tools.

Superagent vs. Fetch API: Feature Comparison

To decide between Superagent and Fetch API, you need to understand their unique features. Let's see how these HTTP clients compare in detail. 

Superagent Has More Built-in Features, but Fetch is More Scalable

Superagent is a feature-rich HTTP client capable of handling most web scraping tasks. It has built-in features such as callbacks, timeouts, retry mechanisms, request interceptors, and file attachments.

However, Superagent is more rigid to feature modifications as it constrains you to its API methods and abstraction layer. This limitation makes scaling more challenging, especially when your project demands customization beyond the library's supported features.

Although the Fetch API lacks advanced features out of the box, you can extend its functionality with custom middleware to increase its efficiency for complex operations. This makes the Fetch API more suitable for large-scale applications.

Both Fetch and Superagent Have a High Entry Level

Both libraries use JavaScript syntax, so their difficulty level depends on your experience in using each library's API methods.

Despite offering plugins and many built-in features, Superagent's API methods are complex, and its chaining technique makes it harder to learn. Although Fetch API features low-level API and requires more code for advanced HTTP requests, its implementation is relatively more straightforward for beginners. 

Since Fetch API is part of JavaScript's standard specifications, developers are more familiar with it than Superagent. It means you'll easily find resources to solve problems quickly.

Fetch Is More Popular

Fetch API is more popular than Superagent, considering it's part of JavaScript's standard library. Introduced in 2015, Fetch API has been a standard for making HTTP requests in JavaScript. It's more accessible to most developers and used across many applications, including web scraping programs.

Although Superagent has a decent user base with over 9.1 million weekly downloads, it's still less popular than Fetch API, which is already a standard method in JavaScript. However, even compared to other external libraries, Superagent isn't the number one choice. For example, Axios surpasses Superagent in popularity with over 50 million weekly downloads.

Both Have Good Browser Support (With Limitations)

Both Superagent and Fetch API are compatible with popular browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Opera, and Safari. However, neither is supported by older browsers with outdated JavaScript engines.

Like all external libraries, Superagent presents browser challenges when loaded directly into your HTML from an external script. That's because browsers don't support the CommonJS module system, which uses the "require" statement to import modules into Node.js applications.

To use Superagent in your HTML from an external script, you need a bundler like Browserify or Webpack. However, a bundler isn't required when using Superagent with client-side development libraries such as Vue, Angular, and React, which already have standard build systems.

Fetch API doesn't pose bundling issues because it's readily available as part of JavaScript's standard library and doesn't require an import. 

Fetch API Is Faster

To compare the performance of both tools, we performed a 100-iteration benchmark to measure their request speeds. 

Fetch API was faster, completing a request within an average of 425.69 milliseconds. It took Superagent 1408.64 milliseconds to request the same website. 

This result is understandable since Fetch API is more lightweight and well-optimized to support JavaScript's native methods, such as standard promises. On the other hand, Superagent's API manages heavy logic internally, contributing to its slow performance.

See the graphical representation of the speed benchmark below:

How to Avoid Getting Blocked When Using Fetch and Superagent?

If you want to build a scalable web scraper that extracts all the data you need with no bottlenecks, your chosen HTTP client should have mechanisms to avoid anti-bots. However, neither Superagent nor Fetch API provides a straightforward way to deal with this issue.

Superagent supports proxy implementation to avoid IP bans. Additionally, both tools support header customization, which helps you appear as a real user while making HTTP requests. While these solutions offer a moderate success rate in accessing protected pages, they're insufficient to bypass advanced anti-bot mechanisms like Akamai and Cloudflare.

The best way to avoid getting blocked during content extraction is to use a web scraping API like ZenRows. It integrates easily with Fetch API and Superagent. All it takes to set it up is a single API call. ZenRows customizes your request headers, auto-rotates premium proxies, acts as a headless browser, and bypasses CAPTCHAs and any other anti-bot system at scale.

All you need to do is sign up on ZenRows, paste your target URL into the request builder's link box, activate Premium Proxies and JavaScript boost mode, and select Node.js as your preferred language. Then, watch ZenRows auto-generate your request code in a matter of milliseconds. Just paste that code into your JavaScript file and run it to bypass any anti-bot system.

Conclusion

In this article, you've seen the differences between Superagent and Fetch API.

Your choice between both tools should depend on your project requirements and familiarity with their concepts. Fetch API is faster, more popular, and based on JavaScript, and Superagent has more advanced built-in functionalities. Both libraries have broad browser support, with Fetch API offering easy implementation with external scripts.

Regardless of the tool you choose for your web scraping project, ensure your scraper can avoid blocks and bans successfully. We recommend using a web scraping API, such as ZenRows. ZenRows is compatible with any programming language and enables you to bypass all anti-bot detection systems to scrape any website uninterrupted.

Try ZenRows for free now without a credit card!