As repellent noted, JSON::XS is *very* fast. For some data sizes (in some benchmarks) it beats Storable. Here's a sample. Note the examples show the main caveat, JSON cares whether things are numbers or strings.

use JSON::XS;

my %bingo = ( one => 1,
              two => 2,
              three => 5, );

my %bongo = ( three => 5,
              two => 2,
              one => 1,
              );

my %bango = ( one => "1",
              two => "2",
              three => "5", );

print "Is bingo bongo? ",
    encode_json(\%bingo) eq encode_json(\%bongo) ? "yes!\n" : "noes :(
+\n";

print "Is bango bongo? ",
    encode_json(\%bango) eq encode_json(\%bongo) ? "yes!\n" : "noes :(
+\n";
[download]

Is bingo bongo? yes!
Is bango bongo? noes :(
[download]