PHP - curl is way slower than file_get_content

Question

In my script, if I use directly file_get_content and download file, result is within 1 second.

However, if I use CURL, I wait around 5 seconds. This is my code, is there something wrong?

$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_BUFFERSIZE, 64);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 20);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);

$dataStream = curl_exec($ch);
if ($dataStream === false)
{
    $lastError = curl_error($ch);
}
curl_close($ch);

//process $dataStream

Both connections are with same $url that is on HTTPS protocol.

Output from curl_getinfo on my primary server:

[content_type] => text/html [http_code] => 200 [header_size] => 433 [request_size] => 214 [filetime] => -1 [ssl_verify_result] => 0 [redirect_count] => 0 [total_time] => 5.336287 [namelookup_time] => 0.000472 [connect_time] => 0.000722 [pretransfer_time] => 0.121571 [size_upload] => 0 [size_download] => 398 [speed_download] => 74 [speed_upload] => 0 [download_content_length] => 398 [upload_content_length] => 0 [starttransfer_time] => 0.33125 [redirect_time] => 0 [redirect_url] =>

I also tried the same code on my localhost machine and it works just fine with CURL. Output from curl_getinfo on my localhost test server:

[content_type] => text/html [http_code] => 200 [header_size] => 433 [request_size] => 207 [filetime] => -1 [ssl_verify_result] => 0 [redirect_count] => 0 [total_time] => 0.328 [namelookup_time] => 0 [connect_time] => 0.031 [pretransfer_time] => 0.109 [size_upload] => 0 [size_download] => 376 [speed_download] => 1146 [speed_upload] => 0 [download_content_length] => 376 [upload_content_length] => -1 [starttransfer_time] => 0.328 [redirect_time] => 0 [redirect_url] =>

The results of curl_getinfo() might give you some insight. — Alex Howansky
Is that 64 for the buffer size limiting the transfer to chunks of 64 bytes at a time? That could explain it being slow. Try 1024 * 64 or something larger. — Russell Austin
What's the buffer size setting supposed to achieve here anyway? Is there a specific requirement to explicitly set/use one? (By the API/service you are requesting data from?) I don't suppose file_get_contents bothers with such specifics much ... — CBroe
@CBroe It seems that removing this solved the problem. Thank you. Post it as answer please. — Martin Perry

CBroe CBroe · Accepted Answer · 2017-12-28T17:04:47

What's the buffer size setting supposed to achieve here?

According to the manual,

The size of the buffer to use for each read. There is no guarantee this request will be fulfilled, however.

it seems to be the factor slowing things down here. By limiting the read buffer size, reading slows down with it - kinda understandable ;-) It might have a much higher default value, or no buffering happening at all unless specified - so unless there is a specific requirement to do so by the API/endpoint you are making the request to, likely best not to specify it at all.

PHP - curl is way slower than file_get_content

1 Answers