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I recently came across this genius bit of code on HTTP POST from PHP, without cURL and am wondering if POSTing with cURL or the fopen() provided by PHP. If one is faster, why? If they are both slow, how can I speed them up? If I'm invoking the POST page with another POST, instead of loading the page, will it load faster because there is no browser processing?

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  • The limiting factor here is the network traffic, not the library used to make the request. The difference (if there even is one) will be microseconds. In general, use cURL - it is more widely available (allow_url_fopen is often disabled in shared environments) and functionality-wise it is vastly superior. They may even both use libcurl anyway, depending on the installation setup: Beginning with PHP 4.3.0 you can configure PHP to use cURL for URL streams --with-curlwrappers Commented Aug 7, 2012 at 14:21
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    I imagine they'll be about the same speed. The bottleneck is likely to be your server's internet connection. As for invoking the POST page with another POST, instead of "loading" the page - that makes zero sense. POST requests load a page, too. Commented Aug 7, 2012 at 14:22
  • @minitech Just to make sure, are there any problems with crossdomain POSTing? Commented Aug 7, 2012 at 14:23
  • @hexacyanide: Are you doing it with Ajax? Commented Aug 7, 2012 at 14:23
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    @hexacyanide Server side initiated requests are not subject to the same origin policy like they are on the client side. Irrelevant of the mechanism you use to make the requests. Commented Aug 7, 2012 at 14:24

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cURL operates much faster as it lacks the occasional requirement of HTTP request setup.

In addition, it's suggested that you not use fopen() for this functionality (many people disable allow_url_fopen in their php.ini file) for security reasons.

Enjoy and good luck!

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Not really genius... it's the old fashioned way before cURL. Both methods are valid.

Both methods go via the internet/network so both are at the mercy of latency in general... however cURL should be slightly quicker and the preferred mechanism.

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it's the old fashioned way before cURL. - technically cURL support was first. curl_init(): (PHP 4 >= 4.0.2, PHP 5), stream_context_create(): (PHP 4 >= 4.3.0, PHP 5)
OK... true... in practice many people (including myself in early life) shied away from cURL :)

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