The Perl standard for cheap hosts was Lincoln Stein's CGI.pm (HTML::Mason required mod_perl for decent performance) but it was constantly subject to patches as

The Perl standard for cheap hosts was Lincoln Stein's CGI.pm (HTML::Mason required mod_perl for decent performance) but it was constantly subject to patches as the whole internet poked it to find holes. It taught me just how difficult it can be to get HTTP/CGI parsing correct and secure. I mean there were some pretty sharp people in the Perl community working on CGI.pm but you always knew another security hole was just round the corner. To some extent PHP sidestepped these issues which may be why it took off so quickly.