title: Is the PHP CURL api cleaner/faster/better than using streams for HTTP/HTTPS access?
body: <p>I currently use pretty exclusively the PHP stream context functionality (see <a href="http://us2.php.net/manual/en/function.stream-context-create.php">http://us2.php.net/manual/en/function.stream-context-create.php</a>) to access HTTP resources and I've been able to successfully use it to do PUTs, DELETEs, POSTs, manage cookies and do just about everything I've needed to do. I originally started using it because I had SSL issues with earlier Debian PHP cURL builds (there was an OpenSSL double-initialization issue within the Apache process that errored out when trying to access SSL urls): those are probably fixed now but I've not had occasion to go back.</p>
  
  <p>In discussions with a friend he contended that the cURL api is faster/better so I wanted to ask: is there any definite experience/knowledge about which option is superior, and in what ways?</p>