Most Popular Programming Languages

In the world of technology, everything is imbued with machine learning, data science, and web development to create software to automate most operations. As a result, the most popular programming languages like JavaScript, Python, and many more stand at the forefront of tech advancement. Over the years, the programming language market share has been fluctuating, shaping the demand for skilled professionals. Before you is the latest data on the most popular languages for programming, so read on.

The Most Popular Programming Languages

1. Python – 29.48% market share

2. Java – 17.18% market share

3. JavaScript – 9.14% market share

4. C# – 6.94% market share

5. PHP – 6.49% market share

6. C/C++ – 6.49% market share

7. R – 3.59% market share

8. TypeScript – 2.18% market share

9. Swift – 2.1% market share

10. Objective-C – 2.06% market share

(PYPL PopularitY of Programming Language Index)

Python

1. Python is one of the most popular programming languages on GitHub. (VentureBeat)

2. It was named after the popular BBC show Monty Python’s Flying Circus. (Edureka)

3. Approximately 40% of Python users are between 21 and 29 years old, according to the programming language usage statistics. (OpenSource)

4. Around 52% of Python developers are fully employed by an organization. (JetBrains)

5. Some 13% of Python developers are either self-employed or freelancing. (JetBrains)

6. The Stack Overflow programming language statistics named Python the most wanted coding tool for the third year in a row. (Stack Overflow)

7. For nearly 80% of developers using Python, it’s the primary language they use, and for 21%, it’s the secondary one. (JetBrains)

8. Out of the websites whose server-side programming language we know, 1.4% use Python. (W3Techs)

9. As the second most popular programming language, Google Trends has listed Python. (CodeBurst)

10. Python has been downloaded over 23 million times for Windows. (Discussions on Python.org)

11. Python surpassed Java as the most widely used programming language in 2019, with over 8.2 million vs. 7.6 million developers using it. (ZDNet)

12. Python developers can earn up to $108,598 in the USA in 2021. (Daxx)

13. 73% of Python users are developers and programmers. (JetBrains)

14. Some 19% of users are data scientists. In this area, it’s one of the most popular programming languages, Stack Overflow data suggests. (JetBrains)

15. Only 36% of developers use Python professionally for game development, while 64% do it as a hobby. (Analytics India Magazine)

16. Roughly 75% of developers use Python 3 version, as opposed to 25% using Python 2. (JetBrains)

17. 49% of Python developers prefer Django as a framework to work with. (Monocubed)

18. Around 75% of Python developers use SQL databases, programming language statistics suggest. (JetBrains)

19. The United States has the largest share of Python developers (18%). (JetBrains)

20. Python is the most loved of the coding languages, with 73.1% of surveyed programmers confirming it. (Stack Overflow)

Java

21. Java is one of the most commonly used programming languages, with 95% of enterprises relying on it as their primary coding tool. (Geekbots)

22. Java developers could earn up to $109,000 median annual salary in the US, according to the PayScale data. (PayScale)

23. About three billion phones are powered by Java, along with 125 million TVs and every Blu-Ray player. (IndiaToday)

24. In September 2021, Java was one of the most popular programming languages by market share, with 17.88%. (PYPL PopularitY of Programming Language Index)

25. The number of Java developers worldwide stands at over 9 million. (Skywell Software)

26. Java is one of the most in-demand programming languages, with over a billion downloads every year. (Skywell Software)

27. There were 45 billion active Java virtual machines in 2019, out of which 25 billion were active cloud machines. (Oracle)

28. Java is the number one coding language for AI development companies, DevOps, chatbot builders, analytics, and so on. (Oracle)

29. There were over 60,000 job vacancies for developers using this coding language in 2019, underscoring the Java popularity. (Skywell Software)

30. Java’s market share stands at 1.82%, accounting for 140,512 websites. (Datanyze)

31. About 42.02% of Java developers are using the Java 8 version. (New Relic)

32. Oracle makes up some 75% of the Java market share. (New Relic)

JavaScript

33. From 47,000 developers surveyed in 2020, 69.7% stated that JavaScript was their number one language for coding. (DHTMLX)

34. In 2020, 24% of ecommerce companies globally planned to invest in one of the JavaScript frameworks — Progressive Web Applications. (Statista)

35. Only 11% of ecommerce companies were actually using PWA in 2020. (Statista)

36. Github programming language statistics show that in Q2 2021, JavaScript was the number one coding language, with a 19% share. (Github Language Stats)

37. Node.js is the 6th most loved framework of JS, preferred by 72% of surveyed developers. (Towards Data Science)

38. JavaScript is a client-side language for 87.6% of all websites, programming language statistics indicate. (W3Techs)

39. Vue.js framework had over 2 million downloads in 2021. (npm trends)

40. The average salary for JS developers fell in 2020, from $114,000 to $113,000. (Medium)

41. Only 10.8% of developers strongly agree that it’s difficult to build JavaScript apps. (The State of JavaScript Survey)

42. Approximately 62% of developers were happy with the overall state of JS in 2020, and 17% were very happy. (The State of JavaScript Survey)

C#

43. Github language trends show C# usage decreased by 0.38% between 2020 and 2021. (Github Language Stats)

44. According to the report by SlashData, about 6 million developers use C#, an increase from 5.8 million, as previous reports indicate. (Visual Studio Magazine)

45. Two out of three C# developers started using the latest version, C#7, which is an increase from 44% in 2018. (JetBrains)

46. C# is one of the most popular programming languages for Windows, with 90% of developers using it on this OS. (JetBrains)

47. In 2019, C# lost over one million developers because of the emergence of cross-platform tools combining web technologies. (Visual Studio Magazine)

48. C# is one of the best Android programming languages, statistics confirm, and it’s used by many Android app development companies. (GeeksforGeeks)

PHP

49. The PHP percentage of the web is 78.8%, as a server-side programming language. (W3Techs)

50. Version 7 is the most commonly used version of PHP, used by 68% of the websites with PHP. (W3Techs)

51. 45% of surveyed developers said that PHP is loved, as opposed to 54% that claimed it’s dreaded. (Stack Overflow)

52. In terms of backend programming languages market share, PHP is the number one with 79%. (Wappalyzer)

53. Computer electronics and technology is the most common industry where PHP developers work, with a market share of 3.93%. (SimilarTech)

54. VK.com, with 1.5 billion monthly visits, is the largest website using PHP. (SimilarTech)

55. The US has the largest PHP market share in terms of websites, with 632,651 sites. (SimilarTech)

56. Given that WordPress, which powers 34% of all websites worldwide, uses PHP, no wonder it’s one the most popular programming languages for web development. (Kinsta)

57. Programming language speed ranking shows that PHP 7.3 is pushing two to three times the number of requests per second compared to PHP 5.6. (Kinsta)

C/C++

58. C++ is one of the oldest general-purpose programming languages, with 37 years behind it. (Dice Insights)

59. One in five surveyed developers are using the latest standard of C++, and many are planning to move to a minimum C++17. (JetBrains)

60. According to the TIOBE index, C was the number one programming language, despite losing 4.12% market share YoY. (TIOBE)

61. Linux, powering over 97% of the world’s 500 supercomputers, is written mostly in C. (Toptal)

62. Some 5% of developers use C++ as the primary programming language, while 4% use C. (JetBrains)

63. Looking at the web programming languages market share, we can see that only 0.1% of websites use C++ as a server-side language. (W3Techs)

64. Roughly 34% of C++ developers use Visual Studio. (JetBrains)

65. GoogleTest is the most commonly used testing framework for 45% of C++ developers. (JetBrains)

66. Nearly half, or 47% of C developers, use the C99 version on a regular basis. (JetBrains)

R

67. After Python, R is one of the commonly used programming languages for data science, with a 36% share. (DataCamp)

68. Around 39% of programmers in the retail industry use R. (DataCamp)

69. Apart from being one of the most used programming languages, 74% of users remain loyal to R. (DataCamp)

70. Over 13,000 R packages were available to developers through the Comprehensive R Archive Network. (IBM)

71. With 57.92% of job openings listing it in the requirements, R was the second most desired skill for data scientists in the US in 2019. (Statista)

72. The R programming language popularity surged from 20th position in the TIOBE’s index in August 2019 to 8th place in just a year. (TechRepublic)

TypeScript

73. Nearly 44% of JS developers utilize TypeScript regularly. (JetBrains)

74. In 2019, the number of JS developers using it was only 17%. (JetBrains)

75. TypeScript has nearly 6.5 million weekly downloads on NPM. (Aglowid IT Solutions)

76. As one of the top coding languages, it has 51,460 stars on Github. (Aglowid IT Solutions)

Swift

77. Swift is one of the top 10 most popular programming languages, Google Trends indicates, with a 2.36% market share. (Medium)

78. It was created by Apple back in 2014 and is used predominantly by iOS app developers. (AltexSoft)

79. Swift developers with up to three years of experience could earn almost $90,000 in California. (Medium)

80. Swift is 2.6. times faster than Objective-C, while it’s 8.4 times faster than one of the most popular coding languages, Python. (AltexSoft)

81. Lyft rewrote its entire app with Swift, exchanging 75,000 lines of code of the old codebase with less than a third of that number. (AltexSoft)

82. Based on the recent data from the Stack Overflow Developer Survey, only 5.1% of the total respondents use Swift. (Stack Overflow)

83. Roughly 29% of Swift developers have most of their codebase in Objective-C. (JetBrains)

Objective-C

84. Out of the currently most important programming languages, Objective-C is among the oldest ones, with 35 years under its belt. (Light IT)

85. Approximately 36% of Objective-C programmers have the largest part of their codebase in Swift. (JetBrains)

86. Out of the most common programming languages, Objective-C is one of the most dreaded, with 73.07% of developers confirming it. (Stack Overflow)

87. The median salary for Objective-C developers in the US is $64,859. (Stack Overflow)

88. In addition to being one of the most popular programming languages, Objective-C is a common choice with app development companies, with 79% of Swift/Objective-C developers working on mobile apps for a living and 9% on desktop ones. (JetBrains)

Other Popular Programming Languages

89. Looking at the functional programming languages market share stats, we see that Scala is a server-side programming language for 2.1% of websites. (W3Techs)

90. The average salary of the Scala developer in the US is $136,500. (Talent)

91. According to the PYPL Index stats, the Scala programming language market share was 0.84% in September 2021. (PYPL PopularitY of Programing Language Index)

92. In 2019, 82.8% of surveyed developers said they used Rust, while 7.1% confirmed that although they don’t use it currently, they did in the past. (Rust)

93. 10.1% of developers have never used Rust. (Rust)

94. According to the PYPL index, the Rust programming language market share in September 2021 was 1.14%. (PYPL PopularitY of Programing Language Index)

95. Approximately 27.6% of developers used Rust daily in 2019, while 40. 9% used it weekly. (Rust)

96. Currently, 11,235 live websites use the Dart programming language. (BuiltWith)

97. Between 2018 and 2019, Dart was the fastest growing language in popularity, with usage soaring by 532%. (ZDNet)

98. With 0.57%, the Dart programming language market share is not among the largest. However, its usage is rising. (PYPL Popularity of Programming Language Index)

99. Some 1.1 million professionals use Go as their primary language worldwide. (JetBrains)

100. The number of developers actually using Go is closer to 2.7 million when we include those that use it along with their primary programming language. (JetBrains)

101. Asia has the largest Go programming language market share in terms of developers, with 570,000 of them living there. (JetBrains)

102. 36% of developers use Go for the development of web services. (JetBrains)

103. Go is one of the most used programming languages in IT services, fintech and finance companies, and cloud computing companies. (JetBrains)

Wrap up

The changes in business objectives and the need for finding the most efficient solutions have pushed language development over the years, fueling constant shifts on the list of the most used coding languages. Driven by the business evolution and new tools to foster it, languages have been adapting as well, ultimately leading to new ones that today reign supreme.

Programming Languages FAQ

Are programming languages hard to learn?

Typically, it’s not easy to learn programming languages quickly if you are a novice in the world of programming. For skilled programmers, however, learning a new coding language is not as difficult. Most could write code in a new language after a few days of studying it. One of the easiest and most used programming languages is HTML. It’s also the one most programmers feel at ease with.

How many programming languages does the average programmer know?

Typically, an average programmer uses several languages depending on their main purpose — those related to systems, like C or C++, or object-oriented like Java, C++, and Python. Then, a programmer usually knows some functional programming language like Haskell or Skala and scripting languages, including JavaScript, Ruby, and Python.

How many programming languages are there?

Depending on which source you turn to, the number of programming languages varies. If we look at Wikipedia data, there are around 700 coding languages, while other sources put that number at 9,000+. One of the most relevant sources in this category, the TIOBE Programming Community Index, speaks of 25 coding languages back in 1991, with the number today being around 150.

Why are programming languages important?

Computers and algorithms power the majority of modern human life. And these are, in turn, powered by programming languages. From virtual reality, online games, Uber, anti-virus, and many more commodities of modern life, to rostering and scheduling systems and software, programming languages are the driver behind it all.

Are programming languages open source?

Some of the most used programming languages are open source. For instance, Python, the number one coding language, is one. Other notable examples include Ruby, Swift, JavaScript, Java, and Kotlin.

What programming languages are used for mobile apps?

The list of the mobile programming languages by popularity should start with JavaScript. It’s the best language for cross-platform app development. Next on the list is Kotlin, with clean, perceptive syntax and concise code. It’s a statistically typed language for Android development. Then, we have C++, which is an object-oriented language with low-level manipulation features. Of course, we can’t forget Python with its spectacular library support and enhanced controls capabilities. Finally, Swift and Objective-C are important mobile languages, with the former designed for iOS platforms.

Which programming languages are used in Google?

The largest platforms in the world, such as Google, use many of the most popular programming languages in-house. They even create some, like is the case with Google and Go. On the other hand, the languages Google uses in their everyday operations are JavaScript and TypeScript, mainly for their frontend. On the other side, for the backend, they focus on complex coding languages like C++, C, Python, Java, and Node.

Is C++ still popular?

C++ is an extension of C, yet, it’s an object-oriented coding language created in the 80s. Despite the rise of easier-to-learn alternatives like JavaScript and Python, it still holds its spot as one of the top programming languages. It’s particularly important for high-performance software. With many applications having pain points that include processing speed, it remains the best solution if you want faster software.

Is Python better than Java?

It’s hard to speak of one of these two as the most valuable programming language and give it priority over the other. Instead, these two are the two most popular and powerful coding tools. In comparison to Python, Java is faster, as well as more efficient. On the other hand, Python has the benefit of simplicity, with more concise syntax than Java. That means it can perform the same function only in fewer lines of code.

Which programming language is most in demand?

According to the latest PYPL index stats, the most popular programming languages are Python, with 29.48% market share globally, followed by Java (17.18% market share) and JavaScript (9.14%). Other in-demand languages include C# (6.94%), PHP (6.49%), and C/C++ (6.49%).