Using Axios in Node? Have a look at got

April 12, 2023

Axios is the Node HTTP client most people reach for by default, but got and Node's built-in fetch (Node 18+, backed by undici) are both worth a look first.

How they compare

	`got`	`axios`	built-in `fetch`
Runtime	Node only	Node + browsers	Node 18+ (and browsers)
Modules	ESM-only since v12	CJS + ESM	n/a (global)
Middleware	Hooks via `.extend()`	Interceptors via `.create()`	None (wrap it yourself)
Built-in retry	Yes, configurable	No (third-party)	No
HTTP/2	Yes	No	Yes (via undici)
Pagination helpers	Yes	No	No
Timeout / abort	First-class	First-class	`AbortSignal.timeout(ms)`

If you don't need retries, hooks, streams, or pagination, prefer the built-in fetch — one less dependency. Reach for got when you want first-class retries, HTTP/2, or pagination. Reach for axios when you also need browser parity and the larger interceptor ecosystem.

Hooks vs interceptors

Same task, different shapes — adding a custom header to every request from an instance:

import got from 'got'

const client = got.extend({
  prefixUrl: 'https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com',
  hooks: {
    beforeRequest: [(opts) => {
      opts.headers['X-Custom-Header'] = 'CustomHeaderValue'
    }],
  },
})

try {
  const data = await client.get('posts/1').json()
  console.log(data)
} catch (err) {
  console.error(err)
}

import axios from 'axios'

const client = axios.create({
  baseURL: 'https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com',
})

client.interceptors.request.use((config) => {
  config.headers['X-Custom-Header'] = 'CustomHeaderValue'
  return config
})

try {
  const { data } = await client.get('/posts/1')
  console.log(data)
} catch (err) {
  console.error(err)
}

got returns response shorthand via .json(); axios puts the parsed body on response.data.