axel
v2.17.12 open-sourceThe section your link pointed to isn't on axel's page any more, so we've brought you to the top.
Axel is a lightweight CLI download accelerator that speeds up downloads using multiple connections per file, supporting HTTP, HTTPSHTTPSHTTP carried over an encrypted TLS connection. It protects traffic in transit and lets a browser verify the server's certificate., FTP, and FTPSFTPSFTP with TLS/SSL encryption layered on top, standardized in RFC 4217, used by tools that need to transfer files over authenticated, encrypted channels while staying compatible with legacy FTP infrastructure..
axel --no-clobber http://example.com/largefile.bin axel --ipv6 http://example.com/largefile.bin axel --max-redirects=10 http://example.com/largefile.bin ./configure CFLAGS="-O2 -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2" LDFLAGS="-pie"
Summary
axel is an open-source, free command-line download accelerator that speeds up HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, and FTPS transfers by opening multiple connections per file and balancing load across servers when several sources are given. It runs as a single lightweight binary, built with GNU autotools, aimed at users on byte-critical or resource-constrained systems who would otherwise reach for a plain wget or curl call. Its README frames it as an alternative to the download managers bundled with browsers or distros, favoring minimal footprint over a graphical interface. Development is community-run, with paid work funded through sponsorships, and while the project carries 46 contributors since 2008, there have been no commits in the past year and the last release shipped 866 days ago, so treat it as stable rather than actively maintained.
Axel is a lightweight CLI download accelerator that speeds up downloads using multiple connections per file, supporting HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, and FTPS.
How axel helps
How much faster does a large file come down when the source can take several connections at once?
opens multiple connections against the same file and stitches the pieces back together, so total transfer time drops versus a single-stream fetch with wget or curl
Can several mirrors of the same file be pulled from at once instead of hammering one server?
takes multiple source URLs for one target file and splits the workload across them, balancing load between the servers instead of relying on just one
Is a download still going to fit on a resource-constrained or byte-critical box?
runs as a single lightweight binary with a minimal footprint, so it fits where a full browser-style download manager would not
Which transfer protocols can this replace a browser's or distro's download manager for?
handles HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, and FTPS transfers directly from the command line, without a graphical interface
Should a fresh binary be built with SSL/TLS support left out?
offers a build-time option to compile without SSL/TLS, trading HTTPS/FTPS support for a smaller build
Languages
Command line
No command matches.
| option | found in | since | description |
|---|
Values are placeholders taken from each option’s declared default. Nothing is executed here — the output shown is a recording of a run that already happened.
Score card
-
Shipping velocity releases a month, last 12 months
-
Documentation quality release-notes rubric, 0–100
-
Breaking-change discipline how rarely a release breaks users, and notice given
-
Maintenance risk quiet time against its own cadence, maintainers
-
Innovation & surface new capabilities, API and MCP surface
- Community health
-
Contributor trend distinct committers, this year against last
-
Maintainer concentration bus factor now against a year ago
-
Issue backlog trend issues closed per issue opened, 12 months
-
Responsiveness median time to a maintainer’s first reply
Nine scores for axel, each built from the releases, notes and API history this site tracks — and, on Researcher and Business, where it stands among every measured tool in its category and how that has moved.
Score cards are part of every paid plan.
See plans → Already subscribed? Sign in →Trajectory
Blank means never measured; nothing here is a filled-in zero.
Peer standings are included with Researcher and Business. See how this tool ranks against its competitors, using data we don't publish anywhere else.
See plans →Each score is 0–100 on a published rubric, derived from data this site already shows. A dimension we cannot measure says so — it is never scored 0 and never enters a rank.
How this is scored
- Shipping velocity — releases a month over the last 12 months, on a log scale where 16 a month scores 100. Needs 3 releases in the window.
- Documentation quality — the release-notes rubric published on the analytics page, unchanged.
- Breaking-change discipline — the share of releases carrying a breaking change (none scores 100, half or more scores 0). Only projects that label breaking changes are measured: a clean record cannot be told from an unlabelled one.
- Maintenance risk — quiet time measured against the tool's own release cadence (quiet longer than 90 days and three typical gaps scores 0), plus the number of active maintainers and whether contributors are growing, where known. Higher is lower risk.
- Innovation & surface — new capabilities in the feature ledger this year, API and MCP operations added, and the share of commits that are features: the mean of whichever we hold.
- Community health (open-source tools only) — each is a direction, not a size: contributors this year against last, the bus factor now against a year ago, and issues closed per issue opened, where steady scores 50, doubled 100 and halved 0; plus the median time to a maintainer's first reply (an hour scores about 100, a month or more 0). A commercial card has no repository and carries none of the four.
- Documented delivery (commercial tools) — when a vendor's documented new capabilities have slowed against its own baseline, that counts against the overall standing as heavily as two low dimensions. Steady delivery, or too little history to judge, leaves the standing alone; it is never a sixth score.
- Open-source tools are scored on repository signals; commercial tools on their published changelog. Ranks compare tools within one category and one profile and need at least five measured peers; the overall standing needs three ranked dimensions. Best-in-breed or consolidator is a shape, not a quality, and is never scored.
Release-note detail over time
See how much detail axel puts in its release notes, quarter by quarter, and compare it with tracked tools in the same category. This history uses up to ten retained, reviewed notes per tool; sparse or blank older quarters may reflect that limit.
Checking release-note history…
Releases
13 entries
No entries match these filters.
- October 20261
- January 20242
- December 20211
- November 20201
- April 20201
- July 20191
- May 20191
- October 20171
- September 20171
- August 20171
- June 20161
- November 20151
Project health
Issue, contributor and maintainer activity in axel-download-accelerator/axel, 2023-10 – 2026-09, as of 2026-09-25. Twelve-month figures first; the trend lines run the whole window.
- Contributors 5 +4 vs prior 12 months
- Maintainers 1 +1 joined · −0 left, last 12 months
- Bus factor 1 committers behind half the commits
- Community-filed 83% of issues opened, last 12 months
- Median time to close 3.5 years first maintainer reply 20 hours
- Open backlog 72 of 292 issues ever filed
- Issues opened / month 1 · 0 communitymaintainers
- Open backlog 72
- Contributors / month 0
- Commits / month 0
- Stars 3,401
- other 100%
Counts from the project's public repository and git history; no individuals are identified. Maintainers are the committers covering 80% of the last year's commits. how we measure this
Libraries its release ships
What its latest release locks, checked against known advisories.None of its release's images build from a lockfile we can read.
Add the badge to your README
Maintain this project? The badge links readers straight to this page, so they can follow every release here.
Choose a badge style and copy the code →