HTTP library
reqwest
Programming language clients. A script somebody wrote, purpose unknown.
Last updated
At a glance
| Category | HTTP library |
|---|---|
| User agent match | contains "reqwest" |
| Executes JavaScript | No |
| Respects robots.txt | No |
| Identity verifiable | No, the name is only a claim |
| IVT class | GIVT (general invalid traffic: declared automation) |
What reqwest is
reqwest is not a company or a crawler, it is an HTTP client library: a building block programmers use to fetch pages from scripts. A visit carrying this name means someone wrote code that requested your page and did not bother to disguise it. The purpose can be anything from a harmless integration to a scraper.
Can the name be trusted?
There is no published way to verify reqwest: the operator provides no IP ranges and no reverse DNS scheme, so the name in the user agent is only a claim. Any script can send it. TrueVisit still names the traffic, and weighs the claim against behavioral signals instead of trusting it.
Should you block it?
A content site rarely loses anything by challenging reqwest. Legitimate integrations that use it (your own scripts, a partner feed) are known to you and can be allowed by address; everything else is unattended automation that ignores robots.txt. Prefer a challenge over a hard block so a misidentified client gets a way through.
For enforcement rather than a polite request, the Cloudflare blocking guide generates copy-paste WAF rules from this same signature list, with guardrails that keep verified search engines safe.
How TrueVisit reports it
Visits from reqwest appear in your bot report under this exact name, never as an anonymous percentage, and every verdict stores the reason it was reached. Because this client never executes JavaScript, a browser-only tracker cannot see it at all; it is visible through server-side collection, which is how the visits reach your report.