How to Make an HTTP Request with PHP

PHP can make HTTP requests with cURL or the Guzzle library. cURL is built-in; Guzzle is popular for more complex needs.

GET request example

Making a GET request to fetch data with custom headers:

$ch = curl_init('https://api.example.com/users');
curl_setopt_array($ch, [
    CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
    CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => [
        'Accept: application/json',
        'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN'
    ]
]);
$response = curl_exec($ch);
$data = json_decode($response);
curl_close($ch);

POST request example

Making a POST request to send JSON data:

$ch = curl_init('https://api.example.com/users');
$data = json_encode(['name' => 'John', 'email' => 'john@example.com']);
curl_setopt_array($ch, [
    CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
    CURLOPT_POST => true,
    CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => $data,
    CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => ['Content-Type: application/json']
]);
$response = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);

Other libraries you can try

Python: Requests — simple and popular HTTP library, HTTPX — async-capable HTTP client
JavaScript: Axios — promise-based HTTP client, node-fetch — Fetch API for Node.js
Ruby: HTTParty — simple HTTP client, Faraday — flexible HTTP library, RestClient — lightweight REST client
Java: OkHttp — efficient HTTP client, Apache HttpClient — feature-rich library
C#: RestSharp — simple REST client, Flurl — fluent HTTP library
Go: resty — simple HTTP client, grequests — goroutine-based requests
PHP: Guzzle — popular PHP HTTP client, Symfony HttpClient — component-based HTTP client