What are the differences between `HttpClient(Andro...

# ktor

[Dean Djermanović]

What are the differences between HttpClient(Android) and HttpClient(OkHttp) with regards to ktor-client?

[Big Chungus]

Mainly minimal supported android version

[Dean Djermanović]

There’s no difference in the underlying implementation? Why wouldn’t we then always use the one that supports lower version?

[Big Chungus]

There are https://ktor.io/docs/http-client-engines.html

[Dean Djermanović]

Yes, I went through that. That doesn’t really answer my question. They only say there’s CIO, Android and OkHttp engines that can be used on Android platform.
I’m currently using Android engine and I want to switch to OkHttp for specific reasons. Are there some downsides of doing that? Performance impact, behaviour changes, etc.?

[Big Chungus]

Behaviour should not change apart from bumping into unsupported android/jvm versions or http features (as listed in the linked tables)

[Big Chungus]

I don't think there are any performance comparisons between the engines

[Big Chungus]

CIO is the only http engine implemented from scratch. The other two just wrap existing industry standard http libraries

[Dean Djermanović]

Thanks for the information. OkHttp engine wraps OkHttp, do you maybe know which library Android engine wraps?

[Big Chungus]

Native android http client from sdk

[Dean Djermanović]

Thank you

[Big Chungus]

You're welcome

[Aleksei Tirman [JB]]

Also, you can find the discussion about difference between those two engines here.