I'm prepping for an upcoming job interview and brushing up on JavaScript. I stumbled upon XMLHttpRequest, which I recall learning about but haven't actually used in my job experiences. I'm wondering, is XMLHttpRequest still commonly used in today's web development, or has it been mostly replaced by the Fetch API or other libraries?
5 Answers
From my experience, XMLHttpRequest is mainly relevant if you need to track upload progress. For everything else, the Fetch API does the job better.
It really depends on where you are in your coding journey. For most beginners, XMLHttpRequest is irrelevant. But if you're advanced, you might need it for things like synchronous HTTP requests. Just keep in mind that fetch lacks some features, like upload progress tracking.
Honestly, if they ask about XMLHttpRequest in the interview, that might be a red flag. The Fetch API has been around for over ten years and was meant to fully replace XMLHttpRequest. It's much more modern and cleaner to work with.
I haven’t used XMLHttpRequest in forever. It still exists in some codebases, but any recent project would use fetch or Axios for a cleaner approach.
Using XMLHttpRequest in 2025 feels a lot like using jQuery — it's functional but not necessary. Most developers have transitioned to fetch() or libraries like Axios unless they’re dealing with legacy systems.
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