Apache/mod perl

mod_perl is an optional module for Apache. It embeds a Perl interpreter into the Apache server, so that dynamic content produced by Perl scripts can be served in response to incoming requests, without the significant overhead of re-launching the Perl interpreter for each request. As Lincoln D. Stein defined mod_perl in his words:

mod_perl can emulate a Common Gateway Interface (CGI) environment, so that existing Perl CGI scripts can benefit from the performance boost without having to be re-written.

Unlike CGI (and most other web application environments), mod_perl provides complete access to the Apache API, allowing programmers to write handlers for all phases in the Apache request cycle, manipulate Apache's internal tables and state mechanisms, share data between Apache processes or threads, alter or extend the Apache configuration file parser, and add Perl code to the configuration file itself, among other things.