There are times when Perl isn't the best solution, and there are times when it is...

In the case you mentioned you are comparing apples with zebras. The Perl application is probably running as a CGI application, so the server forks of Perl each time, which is very slow to do. The Java application has been pre-loaded and compiled, so when it's called it doesn't have to grind away starting Java and compiling away like the Perl code does.

The comparison is not fair. To make it fair run the Perl code under mod_Perl or similar (e.g. FastCGI), or force the Java code to run through CGI. Java may still be faster, but you never know until you do a fair comparison.

A few extra links:

• Mod_Perl home page.
• Building a Large-scale E-commerce Site with Apache and mod_perl *
• mod_perl installed but not faster
• mod_perl vs CGI: benchmarks and code
• How do you feel about mod_perl?
• How common is mod_perl?
• Perl/CGI Performance for a Shopping Cart
• mod_perl Developer's Cookbook

Hope this helps...

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