The estimates we present look at active software developers using each programming language; across the globe and all kinds of programmers. They are based on two pieces of data. First is our independent estimate of the global number of software developers, which we published for the first time in 2017. We estimate that, as of Q3 2022, there are **33.6 million active software developers worldwide.
Javascript continues to be the largest programming language community
JavaScript remains the most popular programming language for the 11th survey in a row, with over 19.5M developers worldwide using it. Between Q3 2020 and Q3 2022, Javascript experienced a 59% increase as 7.3M developers joined the community – one of the highest growths in absolute terms across languages. Not only do new developers see it as an attractive entry-level language, but existing ones are also adding it to their skillset.
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Python vs Java
In 2020, Python overtook Java as the second most widely used language and now counts nearly 17M developers in its community. Python has continued to show strong growth, having added about 8M net new developers over the last two years. The rise of data science and machine learning (ML) is a clear factor in Python’s growing popularity. To put this into perspective, about 63% of ML developers and data scientists report using Python. In comparison, less than 15% use R, the other language often associated with data science.
Java is one of the most important general-purpose languages as well as the cornerstone of the Android app ecosystem. Although it has been around for more than two decades, it continues to experience strong growth. In the last two years, Java has almost doubled the size of its community, from 8.3M to 16.5M. For perspective, the global developer population grew about half as fast over the same period. Within the last year alone, Java has added 6.3M developers, the largest absolute growth of any language community. Our data suggests that Java’s growth is supported not only by the usual suspects, i.e. backend and mobile development, but also by its rising adoption in AR/VR projects, likely due to Android’s popularity as an AV/VR platform.
C/C++, C#, and PHP
The group of major, well-established languages is completed with C/C++ (12.3M), C# (10.6M), and PHP (8.9M). PHP has seen the slowest growth rate of all languages over the last year, growing just 22%, adding 1.6M net new developers. PHP is a common choice for cloud and web developers, but has seen decreasing popularity, particularly amongst web developers where it has gone from the second most popular language in Q3 2021 behind JavaScript, to the fourth most popular in Q3 2022, with Python and Java becoming more popular choices.
C and C++ are core languages in embedded and IoT projects, for both on-device and application-level coding, but also in mobile and desktop development, which are sectors that attract 17.7M and 15.6M developers respectively. C#, on the other hand, has maintained its popularity among multiple different areas of software development, particularly among desktop and game developers. C/C++ added 4.3M net new developers in the last year and C# added 2.8M over the same period.
Forming strong communities
Rust has more than tripled in size in the past two years, from just 0.8M developers in Q3 2020 to 2.8M in Q3 2022. Rust has added 0.7M developers in the last six months alone and is close to overtaking Objective C to become the 11th largest language community. Rust has formed a strong community of developers who care about performance, memory safety, and security. As a result, it has seen increased adoption in IoT software projects, but also in desktop and game development, where Rust is desired for its ability to build fast and scalable projects.
Kotlin has also seen large growth in the last two years, more than doubling in size from 2.3M in Q3 2020 to 6.1M in Q3 2022. As such, it went from the ninth to the seventh largest language community during this period of time, overtaking Swift and those using visual development tools. This growth can largely be attributed to Google’s decision in 2019 to make Kotlin its preferred language for Android development and it is currently used by a fifth of mobile developers and is the second most popular language for mobile development. Despite Google’s preference for Kotlin, the inertia of Java means that, after three years, it is still the most popular language for mobile development.
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