This is a good opportunity to learn something new.

That seems like a perfect reason to try out a framework :)

It seems sensible to use whatever is installed on the shared hosting I use...except there isn't one! I have gone through this list and the only one listed there that is installed is Moose which is not what I am wanting.

Because several monks have mentioned it, and 1nickt talked about Yancy, I am thinking that Mojolicious would be a sensible choice. But the documentation says "...no requirements besides Perl 5.26.0 (versions as old as 5.16.0 can be used too, but may require additional CPAN modules to be installed)"

The shared hosting has v5.16 installed and I cannot directly install modules from CPAN because the compilers are turned off to shared hosting users. I have to contact support and then it's a lottery whether I get someone who installs the module or who says they are unable to. If there is going to need to be many modules installed before I can run Mojolicious under v5.16 then it could be a long time before I even get to write a line of code :(

The plan was to have the first version up and running by the weekend - four days away...
I knew it was going to be a steep learning curve but didn't expect the slope to be this steep, this soon!

I cannot directly install modules from CPAN because the compilers are turned off to shared hosting users.

You can directly install Pure-Perl modules from CPAN as those don't require any separate compilers.

If you are really stuck and need an XS module you could always cross-compile as a last resort. However, in your shoes I would break the shackles at this point and move off shared hosting and onto a VM. Your shared hosting will probably limit the scope of any persistent framework/middleware anyway.

I have gone through this list

That list contains things which aren't web frameworks and is pretty far from exhaustive. Earlier this year I submitted this quest response which is far more extensive (and even then I left quite a few out).

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You can directly install Pure-Perl modules from CPAN as those don't require any separate compilers.

I'm not sure I can install them via cPanel but, yes, I have in the past downloaded the Perl source and installed it in the appropriate subdirectory of the cgi-bin. My guess is that Mojolicious or one/some of its dependencies won't be pure Perl but worth a try.

Thanks for the list...very helpful :)

Can you not do the development on your local system in parallel with fighting the module install battle on the hosting system? That at least lets you know what module dependencies there may be.

Optimising for fewest key strokes only makes sense transmitting to Pluto or beyond

Do you know what a bus factor is?

I am well aware of the bus factor. However, I would hope that should I befall this fate, my partner Joolz's primary concern will not be the continued development of her website 😊

Having said that, do you have any input to help me choose a framework? Are they very similar or is it a case of nailing one's flag to a framework?