It's a little different PERL can do everything PHP can do just you might have to use modules for it. PHP has alot of stuff built in that PERL calls though modules. And a module exists for just about everything.
PHP makes it really easy to have your script ( the commands ) and the html in the same file PERL makes it a little trickier. PHP is much easier to pickup quickly than PERL in MHO.
But there are things that PERL can do that PHP has a hard time doing.
-Angel