In bbcache switch from reqwest to ureq

[nsheff]

Consider switching from reqwest to ureq in gtars-bbcache

Background

• gtars-bbcache currently uses reqwest for HTTP requests to download BED files from bedbase.org.

• related to Python bindings wont build for linux aarch64 #18

  Problem

  reqwest is a heavy dependency:

  • Pulls in 161 packages (including tokio, hyper, TLS libraries, etc.)
  • Even with features = ["blocking"], it still uses tokio/async internally
  • Increases compile times significantly
  • Adds unnecessary complexity for our simple use case (just GET requests)

  Proposed Solution

  Switch to ureq:

  • Only 70 packages (less than half of reqwest)
  • Synchronous-only (no async runtime overhead)
  • Faster compile times
  • Still supports HTTPS, error handling, and all features we need

  Impact

  • Reduced dependency tree
  • Faster builds
  • No functional changes (API is similar)
  • Same HTTPS/TLS support

  Code Change

  [dependencies]
  -reqwest = { version = "0.12.15", features = ["blocking"] }
  +ureq = "2.10"
  
  Update HTTP calls from:
  let response = reqwest::blocking::get(&url)?.bytes()?.to_vec();
  
  To:
  let mut data = Vec::new();
  ureq::get(&url).call()?.into_reader().read_to_end(&mut data)?;
  
  

other options:

Library	Total Packages	Downloads (all-time)	Recent Downloads	Notes
reqwest	161	267M	45M	Most popular, but heavy
ureq	70	63M	11M	Popular & well-maintained
attohttpc	98	15M	2.2M	Moderate popularity
minreq	25	2.9M	-	Lightest, less popular

Analysis:

• reqwest is 4× more popular than ureq, but 6× heavier (161 vs 70 packages)
• ureq has good popularity (63M downloads) with half the dependencies
• minreq has lowest downloads but is the simplest (25 packages)

[nleroy917]

I agree and Reddit seems to agree: https://www.google.com/search?q=ureq+vs+reqwest+site:reddit.com