Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, they're not. They can run via CGI (so, yes, compiled for each request) but that's slow as ass. They run via Plack/PSGI - they can be deployed in a multitude of ways, including via FastCGI or running standalone using built-in webservers, or via Starman - the latter in particular is very fast indeed. With a simple "hello world" type app, > 6000 requests/sec can be easily handled. Obviously an app of more realistic…
Funny enough that SO link was the same one I got my misinformation from as the top answer pointed to CGI benchmarks. Thanks for the correction though, but that still doesn't answer my original question: how does Plack compare with mod_perl?
These are all abstraction layers (for each language) which then can be run seamlessly on top of CGI, SCGI, mod_(perl|python|ruby), etc.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plack_(software)
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSGI