curl makes HTTP requests from the terminal: curl -X POST -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d '{"key":"val"}' https://api.example.com. wget downloads files with resume support. Both are essential for automation.
Downloading and API Calls
# curl
curl https://api.github.com/users/torvalds
curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"key":"value"}' https://api.example.com/data
curl -o output.html https://example.com
curl -u user:pass https://api.example.com # basic auth
# wget
wget https://example.com/file.zip
wget -q -O file.zip URL # quiet, custom name
wget -c URL # resume partial download