httpmorph 0.2.0

A Python HTTP client focused on mimicking browser fingerprints.

httpmorph

A Python HTTP client focused on mimicking browser fingerprints.

⚠️ Work in Progress - This library is in early development. Features and API may change.

Features

• Requests-compatible API - Drop-in replacement for most Python requests use cases
• High Performance - Native C implementation with BoringSSL for HTTP/HTTPS
• HTTP/2 Support - Full HTTP/2 with ALPN negotiation via nghttp2 (httpx-like API)
• Browser Fingerprinting - Realistic browser profiles (Chrome and it's variants)
• TLS Fingerprinting - JA3 fingerprint generation and customization
• Connection Pooling - Automatic connection reuse for better performance
• Session Management - Persistent cookies and headers across requests

Installation

pip install httpmorph

Requirements

• Python 3.8+
• Windows, macOS, or Linux
• BoringSSL (built automatically from source)
• libnghttp2 (for HTTP/2)

Quick Start

import httpmorph

# Simple GET request
response = httpmorph.get('https://icanhazip.com')
print(response.status_code)
print(response.text)

# POST with JSON
response = httpmorph.post(
    'https://httpbin.org/post',
    json={'key': 'value'}
)

# Using sessions
session = httpmorph.Session(browser='chrome')
response = session.get('https://example.com')

# HTTP/2 support (httpx-like API)
client = httpmorph.Client(http2=True)
response = client.get('https://www.google.com')
print(response.http_version)  # '2.0'

Browser Profiles

Mimic real browser behavior with pre-configured profiles:

# Use Chrome fingerprint
response = httpmorph.get('https://example.com', browser='chrome')

# Use Firefox fingerprint
session = httpmorph.Session(browser='firefox')
response = session.get('https://example.com')

# Available browsers: chrome, firefox, safari, edge

Advanced Usage

HTTP/2 Support

httpmorph supports HTTP/2 with an httpx-like API:

# Enable HTTP/2 for a client (default is False)
client = httpmorph.Client(http2=True)
response = client.get('https://www.google.com')
print(response.http_version)  # '2.0'

# Enable HTTP/2 for a session
session = httpmorph.Session(browser='chrome', http2=True)
response = session.get('https://www.google.com')
print(response.http_version)  # '2.0'

# Per-request HTTP/2 override
client = httpmorph.Client(http2=False)  # Default disabled
response = client.get('https://www.google.com', http2=True)  # Enable for this request

Custom Headers

headers = {
    'User-Agent': 'MyApp/1.0',
    'Authorization': 'Bearer token123'
}
response = httpmorph.get('https://api.example.com', headers=headers)

File Uploads

files = {'file': ('report.pdf', open('report.pdf', 'rb'))}
response = httpmorph.post('https://httpbin.org/post', files=files)

Timeout Control

# Single timeout value
response = httpmorph.get('https://example.com', timeout=5)

# Separate connect and read timeouts
response = httpmorph.get('https://example.com', timeout=(3, 10))

SSL Verification

# Disable SSL verification (not recommended for production)
response = httpmorph.get('https://example.com', verify_ssl=False)

Authentication

# Basic authentication
response = httpmorph.get(
    'https://api.example.com',
    auth=('username', 'password')
)

Redirects

# Follow redirects (default behavior)
response = httpmorph.get('https://example.com/redirect')

# Don't follow redirects
response = httpmorph.get(
    'https://example.com/redirect',
    allow_redirects=False
)

# Check redirect history
print(len(response.history))  # Number of redirects

Sessions with Cookies

session = httpmorph.Session()

# Cookies persist across requests
session.get('https://example.com/login')
session.post('https://example.com/form', data={'key': 'value'})

# Access cookies
print(session.cookies)

API Compatibility

httpmorph aims for high compatibility with Python's requests library:

Feature	Status
GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, HEAD, PATCH, OPTIONS	Supported
JSON request/response	Supported
Form data & file uploads	Supported
Custom headers	Supported
Authentication	Supported
Cookies & sessions	Supported
Redirects with history	Supported
Timeout control	Supported
SSL verification	Supported
Streaming responses	Supported
Exception hierarchy	Supported

Response Object

response = httpmorph.get('https://httpbin.org/get')

# Status and headers
print(response.status_code)      # 200
print(response.ok)                # True
print(response.reason)            # 'OK'
print(response.headers)           # {'Content-Type': 'application/json', ...}

# Response body
print(response.text)              # Response as string
print(response.body)              # Response as bytes
print(response.json())            # Parse JSON response

# Request info
print(response.url)               # Final URL after redirects
print(response.history)           # List of redirect responses

# Timing
print(response.elapsed)           # Response time
print(response.total_time_us)     # Total time in microseconds

# TLS info
print(response.tls_version)       # TLS version used
print(response.tls_cipher)        # Cipher suite
print(response.ja3_fingerprint)   # JA3 fingerprint

Exception Handling

import httpmorph

try:
    response = httpmorph.get('https://example.com', timeout=5)
    response.raise_for_status()  # Raise exception for 4xx/5xx
except httpmorph.Timeout:
    print("Request timed out")
except httpmorph.ConnectionError:
    print("Failed to connect")
except httpmorph.HTTPError as e:
    print(f"HTTP error: {e.response.status_code}")
except httpmorph.RequestException as e:
    print(f"Request failed: {e}")

Performance

httpmorph is built for speed with a native C implementation and BoringSSL for optimized TLS operations.

Benchmark vs requests library (30-second test, macOS Apple Silicon):

• Throughput: 49.4% faster on average (1,056 vs 707 req/s)
• GET requests: 1,032 req/s vs 709 req/s (1.46x faster)
• POST requests: 1,080 req/s vs 705 req/s (1.53x faster)
• Latency: 33.1% lower on average (0.95ms vs 1.41ms)

See detailed benchmark results for full metrics including performance charts.

Performance Features

• Native C implementation with minimal Python overhead
• BoringSSL for optimized TLS operations
• Connection pooling reduces handshake overhead
• HTTP/2 multiplexing for concurrent requests
• Efficient memory management

Platform Support

Platform	Status
Windows	✅ Fully supported
macOS (Intel & Apple Silicon)	✅ Fully supported
Linux (x86_64, ARM64)	✅ Fully supported

All platforms use BoringSSL (Google's fork of OpenSSL) for consistent TLS behavior and advanced fingerprinting capabilities.

Building from Source

httpmorph uses BoringSSL (built from source) on all platforms for consistent TLS fingerprinting.

Prerequisites

Windows:

# Install build tools
choco install cmake golang nasm visualstudio2022buildtools -y

# Or install manually:
# - Visual Studio 2019+ (with C++ tools)
# - CMake 3.15+
# - Go 1.18+
# - NASM (for BoringSSL assembly optimizations)

macOS:

# Install dependencies
brew install cmake ninja libnghttp2

Linux:

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt-get install cmake ninja-build libssl-dev pkg-config autoconf automake libtool

# Fedora/RHEL
sudo dnf install cmake ninja-build openssl-devel pkg-config autoconf automake libtool

Build Steps

# 1. Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/arman-bd/httpmorph.git
cd httpmorph

# 2. Build vendor dependencies (BoringSSL, nghttp2, zlib)
./scripts/setup_vendors.sh  # On Windows: bash scripts/setup_vendors.sh

# 3. Build Python extensions
python setup.py build_ext --inplace

# 4. Install in development mode
pip install -e ".[dev]"

Note: The first build takes 5-10 minutes as it compiles BoringSSL from source. Subsequent builds are much faster (~30 seconds) as the vendor libraries are cached.

Development

# Clone and setup (includes building BoringSSL)
git clone https://github.com/arman-bd/httpmorph.git
cd httpmorph
./scripts/setup_vendors.sh

# Install development dependencies
pip install -e ".[dev]"

# Run tests
pytest tests/ -v

# Run with coverage
pytest tests/ --cov=httpmorph --cov-report=html

# Run specific test markers
pytest tests/ -m "not slow"           # Skip slow tests
pytest tests/ -m "not proxy"          # Skip proxy tests (default in CI)
pytest tests/ -m proxy                # Only proxy tests
pytest tests/ -m integration          # Only integration tests
pytest tests/ -m fingerprint          # Only fingerprinting tests

Architecture

httpmorph combines the best of both worlds:

• C Core: Low-level HTTP/TLS implementation for maximum performance
• Python Wrapper: Clean, Pythonic API with requests compatibility
• BoringSSL: Google's fork of OpenSSL, optimized and battle-tested
• nghttp2: Standard-compliant HTTP/2 implementation

The library uses Cython to bridge Python and C, providing near-native performance with the ease of Python.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Areas where help is especially appreciated:

• Windows compatibility
• Additional browser profiles
• Performance optimizations
• Documentation improvements
• Bug reports and fixes

Please open an issue or pull request on GitHub.

Testing

httpmorph has a comprehensive test suite with 270+ tests covering:

• All HTTP methods and parameters
• Redirect handling and history
• Cookie and session management
• Authentication and SSL
• Error handling and timeouts
• Unicode and encoding edge cases
• Thread safety and memory management
• Real-world integration tests

Run the test suite:

pytest tests/ -v

Acknowledgments

• Built on BoringSSL (Google)
• HTTP/2 support via nghttp2
• Inspired by Python's requests library
• Browser fingerprints based on real browser implementations

FAQ

Q: Why another HTTP client? A: httpmorph combines the performance of native C with browser fingerprinting capabilities, making it ideal for applications that need both speed and realistic browser behavior.

Q: Is it production-ready? A: No, httpmorph is still in active development and not yet recommended for production use.

Q: Can I use this as a drop-in replacement for requests? A: For most common use cases, yes! We've implemented the most widely-used requests API. Some advanced features may have slight differences.

Q: How do I report a bug? A: Please open an issue on GitHub with a minimal reproduction example and your environment details (OS, Python version, httpmorph version).

Support

• GitHub Issues: Report bugs and feature requests
• Documentation: Full API documentation (coming soon)

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httpmorph - Fast, compatible, and powerful HTTP for Python.