# developit/unfetch

🐕 Bare minimum 500b fetch polyfill.

Repository: https://github.com/developit/unfetch
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/unfetch
Homepage: https://npm.im/unfetch
Language: JavaScript
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Topics: fetch, ajax, xmlhttprequest, polyfill, ponyfill, tiny, unfetch
Last push: 2023-07-23T07:46:45+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 23/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3479, "days_push": 1137, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 5699, forks 202 (observed 2026-08-28T04:09:28.060987+00:00)

## What it is
A tiny (~500 byte gzipped) fetch polyfill/ponyfill for browsers, implemented on top of XMLHttpRequest. It provides a minimal subset of the fetch API with headers and text/JSON responses, usable as a global polyfill or as a module import.

## Use cases
- polyfill fetch in older browsers like IE8+
- make ajax requests with a tiny footprint
- use fetch API without modifying globals via ponyfill
- add fetch support to legacy web apps
- reduce bundle size compared to whatwg-fetch

## When to choose
- you need fetch support in old browsers with minimal bytes
- you only need basic requests with text/JSON responses
- you want a dependency-free ponyfill for bundlers

## When to avoid
- you need streaming request/response bodies
- you need the full fetch spec including Request/Response objects
- you're targeting only modern browsers that already have fetch

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: maintenance
- function: http-client, web-framework
- domain: web-development, frontend, apis
- platform: browser, cross-platform
- tags: fetch-polyfill, ponyfill, xmlhttprequest, ajax, tiny, zero-dependency, nodejs

## Member repositories
- developit/unfetch (main) score 23

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:28.060987+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T17:53:34.367739+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/developit/unfetch (fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:28.060987+00:00, sha 21efcb4c12b0)
  - registry_npm: https://registry.npmjs.org/unfetch (fetched 2026-08-29T08:49:10.162562+00:00, sha 0364112caad1)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.