Here are some best free Aria2 GUI for Windows. These GUIs can be used to download almost any type of file from the internet. With these, you can download compressed files, torrents, images, Linux ISOs, and much more. They just take a link from you and then download that file on your computer. Some of these come with Aria2c built-in but in some of these, you will have to run the Aria2c RPC server. You can opt to download multiple files as well with these software and configure some other optional parameters as well.
Aria2 is an open source and a very popular command line download manager. It’s been around for a long time and a decent competitor to CLI HTTP clients such as wget and cURL but it has some more options. Aria2 supports torrent protocol by default and can download large files with ease. However, some people may not be compatible with the command line version as download commands can be confusing. This is why, you can use the following GUIs to handle download tasks visually like in any download manager software.
5 Free Aria2 GUI for Windows
Persepolis Download Manager
Persepolis is one of the best free download managers that you can use which uses Aria2 under the hood. This is a gully functional and feature rich software that you can use to download almost anything. It has features of all the other prominent free download managers out there you can use and is open source. It simply takes a link of a file from you or torrent file or magnet link. You can track the status of the file being downloaded and manage all the downloaded files from the interface of the software.
Persepolis can run in background and you just download it and install it. It will automatically detect the download links from the clipboard and you just create a download task and start it. This is as simple as that. On the main UI, you can track the download progress and it categorizes files you download in the Downloads folder.
You just run it after downloading and add your first task. It can take direct links and will start downloading it immediately. You can add multiple links to download as well if you want. Not only that but it also comes with downloads shoulder. So if you want to download a file sometime later than you can schedule it with ease. However, for now it lacks browser integration so you will have to create download tasks manually. For advanced features, it supports proxies, advanced extra headers, cookies, user agents, and multi segment downloading.
AWGG
AWGG is another advanced GUI for Aria2 that you can use. And not only Aria2 but it supports some other popular command line downloaders such as cURL, Wget, Axel, and YouTube-Dl. You can use any engine from these to download files and it will save your choice for the next time. Just like Persepolis above, it is a fully featured download manager that has almost all the advanced features. It runs in the background, supports HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, Dropbox with clipboard monitoring. Here it supports batch downloads with multi threading and torrent support with Aria2 engine.
This software can be installed right after you download it from above and then simply run it. Next, you can just start using to download files and other stuff from the internet. Before downloading anything, you can opt for some advanced options such as scheduling. You can schedule your downloads with this software to download a particular file at a later time.
AWGG has browser integration and you will only have to install the browser extension that it offers for Chrome, Firefox, and Opera. It can watch for links on a clipboard to start downloading a file automatically or add them to the queue. For advanced downloading options, you can configure proxies and define custom Aria2 settings in the software preferences.
AriaNG
AriaNG is a browser based Aria2 GUI that you can use on any platform that has some browser installed. It only needs Aria2c RPC server running on the PC or server and then you can manage all the download tasks right from the browser. It supports many kinds of protocols to download files such as HTTP, FTP, BitTorrent, and you can track the download progress. This is an extremely lightweight Aria2 GUI you can use. It supports downloading multiple files at the same time as it has multi aria2 RPC host support.
AriaNG is purely written in HTML & JavaScript and thus no runtime required to set it up or install it. You just download the latest package from the GitHub releases using the link above and simply open “index.html” file in the browser to access the web UI which looks like this.
Initially, the status of the tool is “disconnected” if Aria2c RPC server is not running in the background. You can run the Ariar2c server by simply executing the following command, given that you have Aria2 binary already downloaded on your PC.
aria2c --enable-rpc --rpc-listen-all --rpc-allow-origin-all
Now, the status will change to “connected” and you can now start downloading stuff through it. You can track the download progress and transfer speed right on the web UI and you can even specify a custom directory to save the downloaded files. The UI is mobile responsive and you can use it as a self hostable download manager for your server and it throws desktop notifications when the downloads are finished.
YAAW
YAAW which stands for Yet Another Aria2 Web Frontend is similar to the above Aria2 GUI where you can download files and other stuff. But here it is much simpler than AriaNG above. It only has the main downloading options and you can use it in the same as well. You will need an Aria2c RPC server already running on your machine in order to use it and everything else is extremely simple to manage.
Make sure that you have Aria2 RPC server running on your PC. Use the same command I mentioned above to run it and then open YAAW. Just open the index.html file and from the settings, you just change the protocol from “file to http” as you can see in the screenshot below.
Now, you only have to start downloading files by adding them in the queue. You can add files by their link and it even supports torrents. Track the download progress on the main UI and use this tool in this way anytime you want.
Aria2c Remote Control
Aria2c Remote Control is the last free Aria2 GUI in my list you can use. This is quite an old software that runs on Windows with a few features broken. But the download still works and you only have to specify Aria2c RPC server URL in it to start downloading stuff from the internet. Just like other software I have mentioned here, it takes direct link of a file from you and then downloads it on your PC. it even supports torrent files and magnet links.
Install it and then simply start downloading files with it. It is as simple as that. But the first time, you run it, all the controls on its interface will be disabled in case the Aria2c RPC server is not running. Just run the server and then those controls will become active. To do that, you just configure it from the Tools > Options menu.
Now, after all the controls are enabled, just add your URL or torrent file or magnet link to start downloading stuff. You can download anything; it will work just fine. However, you cannot remove files from the queue or force delete them as this functionality seems to be broken, at least on Windows 10. I included this in the list because downloading still works file so in case you just need a software to download stuff via Aria2c then it is considerable.
Final words:
All the Aria2 GUI I have mentioned in this post work as intended and can download a file or a group of files flawlessly. Some of these are even more advanced that you can even think of replacing your existing download manager with the one mentioned here, especially AWGG. This one is the most advanced one in this list as it supports multiple engines and automatic downloads detection. Other tools are also nice and you can consider them based on their feature set.
