faraday

Faraday is the standard HTTP client for Ruby, the layer GitHub's own Octokit gem sits on. You set up a connection once (base URL, headers, auth) and every request passes through a stack of middleware, the same Rack idea Rails uses on the server, so logging, JSON parsing, auth headers and raising on errors each live in one small plug-in instead of being copied into every call. MIT licensed and completely free.

Setup is gem 'faraday'. It runs on Ruby's built-in Net::HTTP by default and supports Ruby 3.0+. Since 2.0 the other adapters (Typhoeus, Excon, Patron and friends) and most middleware moved into separate gems, so retries mean adding faraday-retry. JSON request and response handling still ships in core. There is no paid tier. Solo, small teams, larger teams: free. Simpler scripts are fine with HTTParty or plain Net::HTTP; Faraday earns its keep when you're writing an API client other people will use.

The catch: 2026 brought three security advisories. A path like //evil.com could swap the base host and carry your Authorization header along, the first fix missed URI objects, and deeply nested query strings could crash a worker. Run 2.14.3 or later (1.10.6 on 1.x).