Since you are just starting out I would suggest CGI::Application as better choice. It doesn't abstract as much things as Catalyst does. Sure, it has magic, but it's easier to understand - you can start faster.
The other option is HTML::Template or TemplateTolkit. I was using H::T but moved to TT as I needed some stuff that were pain to make in H::T and already supported by TT ... And TT also has caching support out of the box, that even under plain CGI gets you x2 more requests while testing with Apache/bin/ab.
Anyway, you should be able to just copy these in some folder on your server and add that folder to the @INC (use lib 'relative/or/full/path';). There is an option while installing TT (on your local/dev computer) not to use XS (C) code ...
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