axel-download-accelerator/axel
Lightweight CLI download accelerator observed · 2026-08-28
Health v2 · maintenance only
67/100
- Activity 98
- Release rhythm 8
- Longevity 100
How is this computed?
round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10) — computed 2026-09-02. Adoption (stars, forks) is never an input.
- gap_med: n/a
- age_days: 4038
- days_rel: n/a
- days_push: 17
- n_releases_24m: 0
Adoption not part of the score
3396 stars · 308 forks observed · 2026-08-28
What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-29, confidence not recorded
Axel is a lightweight command-line download accelerator written in C that speeds up file downloads by using multiple connections per file and balancing load across servers. It supports HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, and FTPS protocols and is designed to be minimal enough for byte-critical systems.
Use cases
- accelerate large file downloads from the terminal
- download a file using multiple parallel connections
- balance download load across mirror servers
- download files over FTP or FTPS from the command line
- lightweight downloader for low-resource or embedded systems
- faster alternative to wget or curl for big files
When to choose
- you need fast CLI downloads with multi-connection acceleration
- you want a minimal downloader for resource-constrained systems
- you need FTP/FTPS support alongside HTTP/HTTPS
- you want to download from multiple mirrors simultaneously
When to avoid
- you need a full-featured downloader with scripting or recursive fetching (use wget/curl)
- you need BitTorrent or metalink support
- you want a GUI download manager
Facets
cli-tool · maturity active
http-client cli developer-tools developer-tools files bsd cli cross-platform download-accelerator multi-connection ftp lightweight c command-line linux macos
1 source
- readme: https://github.com/axel-download-accelerator/axel · fetched 2026-08-28 · 697dfe3d21b1
Member repositories
| Repository | Role | Health v2 |
|---|---|---|
| axel-download-accelerator/axel | main | 67 |
For agents
markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="axel-download-accelerator/axel")
Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00 · Report a problem