Is Perl still useful in 2025?

Perl remains a useful and relevant language in 2025, though its role has shifted compared to its heyday in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Despite the rise of modern languages like Python, JavaScript, and Rust, Perl maintains a niche where its unique features and ecosystem shine.

Why Perl Is Still Useful in 2025

• Legacy Systems and Scripts: Many enterprises have substantial Perl codebases, particularly in bioinformatics, finance, and system administration. Maintaining and extending these requires Perl expertise.
• Text Processing Power: Perl's origin as the "Swiss Army chainsaw" for text parsing, reporting, and manipulation remains unmatched in many scenarios. Its regular expression engine and text handling capabilities are still powerful and efficient.
• CPAN - Comprehensive Perl Archive Network: CPAN offers a vast repository of tried-and-true modules. This ecosystem continually evolves, supporting modern needs like web development with Mojolicious or Dancer.
• Rapid Prototyping: Perl's flexibility, TMTOWTDI (“There's More Than One Way To Do It”), and dynamic typing enable fast development cycles, making it ideal for quick scripting tasks.
• Improved Modern Perl: Since Perl 5.10+, features like the say function, // defined-or operator, and smart matching have made Perl cleaner and more expressive. Perl 5.32+ also includes improved Unicode support and other enhancements.

Where Perl Might Not Be the First Choice

• For new web apps, cloud-native systems, or large-scale enterprise backend development, languages with larger modern ecosystems (Node.js, Go, Python) may be preferred.
• Perl’s syntax and TMTOWTDI philosophy can be confusing for new learners, potentially reducing maintainability in diverse teams.
• Perl 6 (now Raku) represents a different language with a separate ecosystem, which may confuse newcomers regarding Perl’s future.

Practical Perl Example: Simple Log File Parsing

This example demonstrates Perl’s power in text processing — a common real-world task where Perl still excels.

use strict;
use warnings;
use feature 'say';

# Simulate parsing a web server log to count hits by IP
my @log_lines = (
    "192.168.1.1 - - [10/Jun/2025:13:23:15 +0000] \"GET /index.html HTTP/1.1\" 200 1024",
    "10.0.0.5 - - [10/Jun/2025:13:24:01 +0000] \"POST /submit HTTP/1.1\" 404 512",
    "192.168.1.1 - - [10/Jun/2025:13:24:10 +0000] \"GET /about HTTP/1.1\" 200 2048",
);

my %hits;

for my $line (@log_lines) {
    if ($line =~ /^(\S+)/) {  # Capture the IP address at start of the line
        $hits{$1}++;
    }
}

say "IP Hits Count:";
for my $ip (sort keys %hits) {
    say "$ip => $hits{$ip}";
}

This script counts how many requests each IP made from a simulated web log. It uses Perl’s regular expressions, hashes (associative arrays), and concise syntax to produce meaningful output:

IP Hits Count:
10.0.0.5 => 1
192.168.1.1 => 2

Conclusion

Perl in 2025 remains a valuable tool for many specific uses, especially in automation, scripting, and maintaining legacy code. It’s far from obsolete—new Perl versions and extensive CPAN modules keep it modern enough for many tasks. However, its niche focus means it may not be the default choice for new projects unless your domain specifically benefits from Perl’s text processing power and ecosystem.