Comparing
Async http client/server framework (asyncio)
High-level concurrency and networking framework on top of asyncio or Trio
| Metric | aiohttp | anyio |
|---|---|---|
| Ecosystem | Python | Python |
| Difficulty | Beginner | Beginner |
| Weekly downloads | 0 | 0↑ |
| Latest version | v3.13.5 | v4.13.0 |
| Recipes | 1 | 1 |
aiohttp only
Shared
anyio only
Use aiohttp when you need a battle-tested async HTTP client or server, especially in applications that make many concurrent HTTP calls (scrapers, API aggregators) or build lightweight async web services. It has a mature ecosystem and is widely used in production.
Use anyio when writing an async library or framework that you want to be runtime-agnostic. It's also useful in applications that want trio's structured concurrency model but need to interop with asyncio-based libraries like FastAPI or aiohttp.
For new async API projects, FastAPI (built on Starlette/uvicorn) has better developer ergonomics, automatic validation, and docs. For synchronous scripts, requests is simpler. httpx offers a compatible API with both sync and async modes if you want flexibility.
For application code that commits to asyncio (e.g. a FastAPI app), using asyncio directly is simpler — there's no need for the compatibility layer. anyio shines at the library level, not the application level.
aiohttp
anyio