Alternatives to Axel
Lightweight command-line download accelerator that fetches one file over several connections at once. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
Axel
Lightweight command-line download accelerator that fetches one file over several connections at once.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as Axel.
aria2
A command line downloader that pulls one file from several sources at once, including a torrent and a mirror together.
aria2 also runs from the command line and adds BitTorrent, Metalink checksums, multiple sources per file and a JSON-RPC daemon, with builds for Windows, macOS, Linux and Android.
GNU Wget2
Successor to Wget with HTTP/2, parallel connections and compression.
GNU Wget2 offers parallel connections and HTTP/2 from the command line and adds recursive mirroring, while keeping Wget's options, although some Wget options are missing.
GNU Wget
A non-interactive command-line tool for retrieving files over HTTP, HTTPS, FTP and FTPS.
GNU Wget adds resume, recursive mirroring and Windows and macOS support, but it fetches a file over one connection rather than several at once.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
Persepolis
A download manager built on aria2 that splits a file across up to sixty-four connections and schedules queues.
You-Get
An open-source command-line tool that downloads videos, audio and images from web pages.
Lux
A fast command-line video downloader written in Go.
Brisk
Open-source desktop download manager for Windows, macOS and Linux with multi-connection acceleration.
gallery-dl
A command-line program that downloads image galleries and collections from many image hosting sites.
AB Download Manager
Open source desktop download manager with multi-connection downloads, queues, a scheduler and browser extensions.
