Just to clarify, your definition of 'better' in this example is probably defined as 'faster'. Note that the author of HTML::Template::Compiled Tina Mueller mentioned on the mod_perl mailing list that she wouldn't advise using H::T::C in production.

Not to worry though because if speed is your goal, you might want to have a peek at HTML::Template::JIT instead. It's stable and has a decent test suite.