3 cURL to Fetch Converters, Compared Honestly

Every API’s documentation shows the example as a curl command. Your code is JavaScript. Between those two facts sits five minutes of moving -H flags into a headers object and remembering that -d implies POST, and it is five minutes you will spend again on the next endpoint.

Hand-translating is also where the small mistakes live. A header gets dropped, a JSON body ends up as a string that was never stringified, --data-urlencode quietly means something different from -d, and you spend longer debugging the translation than you would have spent on the actual feature. A converter removes that whole category of bug.

How to judge a curl to fetch converter

Does it parse the flags properly, or pattern-match? Real curl commands have quoting, line continuations, and flags in any order. A converter built on a real parser handles those; one built on regexes falls over on the first multi-line paste.

Does it stay in the browser? Curl commands from docs and DevTools routinely carry bearer tokens, API keys, and session cookies. Where that text goes matters.

Does it cover more than the happy path? Basic auth, form data, cookies, and file uploads all have curl flags that need distinct fetch equivalents.

Does the output look like code you would have written? Some converters emit a technically correct blob you then reformat by hand.

The comparison

Facts checked August 2026; plans can change.

curlconverter

curlconverter is the reference implementation of this idea. It converts curl commands into Python, JavaScript, Java, Go, Ruby, and many more, with JavaScript plus fetch as one of the explicit targets. It is a static site hosted on GitHub Pages, and it states plainly that conversion happens entirely in your browser and that the commands you enter are not transmitted or recorded — which is the right answer for a tool you paste bearer tokens into.

Its breadth is also the mild downside. You are choosing a language and a client library before you get output, and the interface is built for that generality rather than for the single fetch case.

Postman

Postman approaches this from the other end. Rather than converting a command in isolation, you build the request inside Postman and then generate a snippet from it — and its code generation explicitly includes JavaScript with Fetch among the supported targets. If the request is one you will keep, run, and share with a team, having it live in a collection is worth far more than a one-off translation.

For a single conversion it is heavy. There is an account to create, a workspace to open, and a request to construct before you get to the snippet you wanted.

ToolsCraft cURL to Fetch

ToolsCraft is the narrow version: paste a curl command, get fetch or axios code, with headers, body, auth, and cookies handled. It states it is free and browser-only with nothing to install, which puts it in the same privacy posture as curlconverter for the token problem.

It is a newer, smaller site than the other two. The output is fine for common commands; for anything unusual you may want to check it against a more battle-tested parser.

cURL to Fetch Converter

Ours is deliberately single-purpose: paste a curl command, get the equivalent JavaScript fetch() call, with headers and body mapped across. No language picker, no account, no workspace. It runs entirely in your browser, so the tokens in your pasted command stay on your machine.

The honest limitation is coverage. It handles the shapes you meet in API documentation — method, headers, JSON bodies, basic auth — and it will not do justice to the exotic corners of curl’s flag set, like multipart uploads with per-part content types or proxy and TLS options that have no fetch equivalent at all. For those, check the output rather than trusting it.

Which one to pick

• If you need a language other than JavaScript, use curlconverter.
• If the request is going into a collection your team will reuse, build it in Postman and generate the snippet there.
• If you want axios output alongside fetch, ToolsCraft covers both.
• If you want the shortest path from a documented curl example to a working fetch call, use ours.

How to do it with cURL to Fetch Converter

1. Open the cURL to Fetch Converter.
2. Paste the curl command, including its headers and body.
3. Copy the generated fetch() call into your code.
4. Replace any hardcoded token with whatever your app uses for secrets. More developer tools are in the tools directory.

You might also need

• HTTP Headers Parser — for making sense of the headers before you port them.
• Mock API Response Builder — for something to call while the real endpoint is still being built.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a free curl to fetch tool that doesn’t need an account?

Yes — curlconverter and ToolsCraft are both free with no signup, and our converter has no accounts because the site has no signup at all. Postman is the exception here: its free plan still requires you to register.

Is it safe to paste a curl command with an API key into a converter?

Only into one that converts in the browser and says so. curlconverter states it does not transmit or record what you enter, and ours parses locally. Even then, the safer habit is to strip the token, convert, and put the real credential back afterwards.

Why does my converted fetch call get blocked by CORS?

Because curl is not a browser and is not bound by the same-origin policy. Browsers are, so a request that works fine from a terminal can be rejected in a page unless the server sends the right headers — MDN’s CORS documentation covers what the server has to return.

Final thought

Convert with a tool rather than by hand, then read the output once before you run it. The conversion removes the transcription errors; only you can tell whether the request still makes sense in a browser.

Try the free cURL to Fetch Converter