# Why cURL is a practical debugger for HTTP problems

DevFeed: [Why cURL is a practical debugger for HTTP problems](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/a-love-letter-to-curl-the-world-s-most-underrated-debugger-38794.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://fidelitas.io/2026/05/a-love-letter-to-curl/>)

Author: fidelitas.io

Published: 2026-05-17T08:15:00Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [fidelitas.io](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/fidelitas-io.md>)

Topics: [cURL](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/curl.md>), [debug](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/debug.md>), [Command-line interface](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/cli.md>), [Unix](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/unix.md>)

Tags: [curl](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/curl.md>), [debugging](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/debugging.md>), [headers](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/headers.md>), [http](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/http.md>), [tooling](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/tooling.md>), [unix](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/unix.md>)

## AI overview

This opinionated developer article argues that cURL is especially useful for debugging HTTP problems in production and remote environments where graphical clients may be unavailable. It contrasts cURL's debugging role with GUI clients' strengths in exploration, sharing, onboarding, and code generation, and introduces commonly useful command-line flags.

## Source excerpt

Postman is great. Insomnia is great. But the moment something goes wrong in production, the tool I reach for first is the one that's been on every Unix box since 1996.