title: What are nice use cases for cURL in PHP?
body: <p>It's evident that the <a href="http://php.net/curl" rel="nofollow">cURL functions</a> are very widely used. But why is that? Is it really only because the extension is mostly enabled per default?</p>
  
  <p>While I can certainly relate to not introducing 3rd party libraries over builtins (DOMDocument vs phpQuery), using curl appears somewhat odd to me. There are heaps of HTTP libraries like <a href="http://framework.zend.com/manual/en/zend.http.html" rel="nofollow">Zend_Http</a> or <a href="http://pear.php.net/package/HTTP_Request/" rel="nofollow">PEAR Http_Request</a>. And despite my disdain for needless object-oriented interfaces, the <strong>pull-parameter-procedural API</strong> of curl strikes me as less legible in comparison.</p>
  
  <p>There is of course a reason for that. But I'm wondering if most PHP developers realize <strong>what else libcurl can actually be used for, and that it's not just a HTTP library</strong>?</p>
  
  <p>Do you have examples or actual code which utilizes cURL for &lt;any other things&gt; it was made for?</p>
  
  <p>Or if you just use it for HTTP, what are the reasons. Why are real PHP HTTP libraries seemingly avoided nowadays?</p>