got

Got handles all of it with a clean API. It's what `axios` wishes it was for server-side Node.

MIT licensed, maintained by Sindre Sorhus (who maintains half the npm ecosystem). Got is specifically designed for Node.js, not the browser. It gives you automatic retries, request cancellation, HTTP/2 support, progress events, and RFC-compliant caching out of the box.

Fully free. It's an npm package. No paid tier, no service, no account.

The catch: Got is Node.js only. If you need a client that works in both browser and Node, use Axios or Ky. Got also doesn't support the Fetch API; it's its own thing. With Fetch now built into Node 18+, some teams are moving toward lighter Fetch wrappers instead. Got is feature-rich but it's also 2.2MB installed; if bundle size matters for your serverless functions, consider Ky or native Fetch.