I have used Embperl for over a year, and I am very happy with it. Lots of the parsing stuff is in C, it runs under mod_perl and does caching so it runs VERY quickly. I especially like the way it handles sticky formfields and autogeneration of tables. Its session handling is practically transparent. It has component handling capabilities somewhat like Mason's. I have not tried them yet, but I am looking forward to it. The free support has been excellent. I don't think Gerald ever goes on vacation and an authoritative answer to your question is usually never more than a few hours away.