Perl was originally written to manipulate text in files, extract data from files, and write reports, but through continued development, it can also manipulate files, processes, and perform many networking tasks.

Perl scripts are functionally similar to Unix awk, sed, Shell scripts, and C programs. Because Perl has built-in functions for easy manipulation of processes and files, and because Perl is portable (i.e., can run on a number of different platforms), it is especailly popular with system administators who often oversee one or more systems.