PHP PECL_HTTP vs cURL Extension

[preegeTaf]

I'm working on a PHP Client for CouchDB. While browsing through the php.net documentation regarding HTTP and cURL, I came across the PECL_HTTP Extension. At first glance, I think I would like to use this PECL extension instead of cURL because it's much simpler to use, and I'm not doing very complicated HTTP work anyways. Plus I always like trying new things, so I wouldn't mind getting my feet wet.As far as my question to the StackOverflow community:

• Has anyone used both the PECL_HTTP and cURL extensions?
• Does the PECL extension have any serious performance issues?
• Is the PECL extension as user-friendly as it appears on the surface?
• Is the tried-and-true cURL library still superior?

Edit: As it turns out, the PECL_HTTP extension uses some of the cURL source code under the hood, so they aren't completely different beasts. Both are also compiled extensions to PHP.