A HTTP library is still a common plugin to include on a project. Depending on what I am working on I will still use jQuery to make some of these requests or include a library like Axios to handle the requests. If you are looking for a way to not include third-party scripts and work with native browser features Fetch will be something that you want to start to look at for including in your project. Lets take a look at a native way to make a GET request before fetch. var request = new XMLHttpRequest(); request.open('GET', '/my/url', true); request.onload = function() { if (request.status >= 200 && request.status response.json()) .then(json => console.log(json)) If the .then looks unfamiliar to you. It is best to start with reading Promise - JavaScript | MDN and learning over at MDN. Once, I started to understand promises. It made Fetch all that much easier to understand and to play with. Fetch actually has really good browser support so you can start using it now. Here are some more resources on Fetch Can I Use: FetchHow to Use the JavaScript Fetch API to Get Data Introduction to the Fetch API