While DBI is all you really need, we like DBIx::Class, so we can pretend database rows are objects. There are other object relational mappers (ORMs), but we switced to DBIx::Class about 9 months ago and have been happy with it. We still use DBI directly for intricate queries where the ORM seems to get in the way or in the very rare (for us) case where speed is an issue. ORMs do pay a speed penalty by creating objects.

Phil