Perl is a highly capable, feature-rich programming language with over 20 years of development. Perl 5 runs on over 100 platforms from portables to mainframes. Perl is suitable for both rapid prototyping and large scale development projects.

Perl 5 supports many programming styles, including procedural, functional, and object-oriented. In addition to this, it is supported by an ever-growing collection of reusable modules which accelerate development. Some of these modules include Web frameworks, database integration, networking protocols, and encryption. Perl provides interfaces to C and C++ for custom extension development.