Sizing

programming
language
communities
How many developers are using each
leading programming language in Q1 2024?
About SlashData
SlashData is the link between the developers and the
organisations that serve them. We bring you all the data to
understand who developers are, what they need and expect
from your product and how you can engage with them.
We reach out to developers to hear their views across 11
development areas: Web apps, Mobile apps, Desktop apps,
Cloud / Backend services, AR/VR, Games, IoT, ML/AI & Data
About Developer Nation
Science, Embedded software, Apps/extensions for 3rd-
party platforms, DevOps and more!
Understand developers. Inspire the future of technology. Developer Nation is a global developer community,
committed to creating a space where all software creators
SlashData Ltd. can set the right foundations for their career, learn how they
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stack up against emerging software development trends,
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get tips and discover opportunities for professional growth
+44 161 240 0603 as well as plan wisely their next moves.
www.slashdata.co Our vision is to empower developers to shape the future!
www.developernation.net
@SlashDataHQ @devnationworld

2
Can I share data from this report?
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The analyst of the developer economy | formerly known as VisionMobile
SlashData © Copyright 2024 | Some rights reserved

3
 Brayton Noll
Senior Market Research Analyst
Brayton Noll is a behavioural scientist with a
background in climate change and
environmental research. He holds a PhD from TU
Delft in computational social science with his
thesis focusing on human behavioural dynamics
and climate adaptation. He has five years of
experience working with data analytics.
Liam Dodd
brayton.noll@slashdata.co
Senior Market Research Analyst
Liam is a former experimental antimatter
physicist, and he obtained a PhD in Physics
while working at CERN. He is interested in
the changing landscape of cloud
development, cybersecurity, and the
relationship between technological Konstantinos Korakitis
developments and their impact on society. Director of Research
liam.dodd@slashdata.co Konstantinos heads the Research Product
team at SlashData and is responsible for all
syndicated research products and custom
research projects. With more than 10 years
of experience as an engineer, consultant and
ABOUT THE AUTHORS manager, he oversees research planning,
survey design, data analysis, insights
generation and research operations.

konstantinos@slashdata.co

4
THANK YOU
We'd like to thank everyone who helped us reach 13,000+
respondents, and create this report. Our Media Partners - Microsoft,
VMware, web3dev, WeMakeDevs, Zup, 诚需猿 - Shanghai Yigu
Technology Co. Ltd, Zup, and so many others.

Our Developer Committee supported our efforts once more, to create

the most up-to-date and detailed survey. Special thanks to our
members: Camille, Christopher, Deborah, Dominic, Dylan, Ioannis, Ivan,
Javier, Julia, Ken, Mateo, Oswaldo, Rajasekar and Thien for your help
with reviewing survey content, translations, and suggesting prizes.

PARTNERS
Our survey was translated into nine different languages - Simplified
Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean, French, Japanese, Portuguese,
Russian, Spanish, and Vietnamese. Thanks to our linguistics partner
Palex Group who supported us to create an inclusive survey. In
addition, our prize payments partner, Chimoney.

State of the Developer Nation Q1 2024 | © SlashData | Some rights reserved 5

 ABOUT THE REPORT SERIES

SlashData’s Developer Nation survey is the leading research programme We hope you will enjoy this report and find the insights useful! If you have
on mobile, desktop, industrial IoT, consumer electronics, embedded, third- any questions or comments, or are looking for additional data, you can
party app ecosystems, cloud, web, game, AR/VR and machine learning get in touch with Stathis Georgakopoulos, Product Marketing Manager for
developers, as well as data scientists, tracking developers’ experiences SlashData at stathis@slashdata.co.
across platforms, technologies, programming languages, app and API You can download and access this report and more free resources at
categories, revenue models, segments, and regions. slashdata.co/free-resources

The 26th edition of the Developer Nation survey reached more than
Alex, Álvaro, Anastasia, Anastasia-Jugersa, Ayan, Berkol, Bleona, Brayton,
10,000 respondents from 135 countries around the world. This research
David, Eleni-Christina, Evgenia, Giannis, Jed, Konstantinos, Lampis,
report delves into key developer trends for Q1 2024 and beyond.
Lazaros, Liam, Maria, Máté, Mina, Moschoula, Natasa, Natela, Nikita,
Nurpari, Richard, Sarah, Sofia, Stathis, Steve M., Steve V., and Vanessa at
In this report, we provide estimates of the number of software developers
SlashData
using various important programming languages, across the globe and all
kinds of programmers. We also explore the effect that coding experience
has on the adoption of each language.

6
 KEY INSIGHTS
• JavaScript continues to reign as the largest language • Developers in the middle of their career (three to ten years
community (25.2M) and continues to grow in line with of experience) are using the most languages on average
global developer population growth. ➜ (3.7), compared to those with less (3.1) or more (3.4)
experience. ➜
• Python has overtaken Java as the second most popular
language, driven by the interest around ML/AI increasing • JavaScript sees the lowest adoption among early-career
the number of developers using Python. ➜ developers (less than three years of experience) with 52%
using it, but it is still the most popular language for this
• Rust (4M) is the fastest-growing language, increasing by group. ➜
30% over the last year alone. ➜
• More experienced developers are more likely to use C# and
PHP. ➜

7
Sizing programming language communities

It can be challenging to accurately assess how widely a

programming language is used. The indices available from
sources like Tiobe, Redmonk, GitHub’s Octoverse report, and
Stack Overflow’s annual developer survey are great, but offer
mostly relative comparisons between languages, providing no
sense of the absolute size of each community.

The choice of programming language can greatly influence the

The estimates we present here look at software developers using
roles, projects, and general opportunities that a developer has.
each programming language; across the globe and all kinds of
Languages are a classic subject of debate and represent the
programmers. They are based on two pieces of data. First is our
foundation of some of the strongest developer communities.
independent estimate of the global number of software
Tracking language use is not just for developers, however;
developers, which we published for the first time in 2017. We
languages and their communities' matter to tool makers too, as
estimate that, as of Q1 2024, there are 43 million active software
they want to ensure they provide the most useful SDKs.
developers in the world. Second is our large-scale, low-bias
surveys, which reach tens of thousands of developers every six
months. In these surveys, we have consistently asked developers
about their use of programming languages across 13 areas of
development. This gives us a rich and reliable source of
information about who uses each language and in which context.

State of the Developer Nation Q1 2024 | © SlashData | Some rights reserved 8

Sizing programming language communities

Size of programming language communities in Q1 2024

Most popular in Least popular in

JavaScript* 25.2 M Web AR/VR

Python 18.2 M Machine Learning/AI Mobile

Java 17.7 M Backend Services AR/VR

C++ 11.6 M Embedded Web

C# 10.2 M Desktop Machine learning/AI

PHP 9.8 M Web Machine learning/AI

Visual development tools 7.2 M AR/VR Backend services

C 6.5 M Embedded Web

Kotlin 5.6 M Mobile Web

Go 4.7 M Backend Services Mobile

Swift 4.6 M Mobile Backend services

Rust 4.0 M Embedded Mobile

Dart 2.9 M Mobile Web

Objective-C 2.7 M On-device (consumer electronics) Desktop

Ruby
Number of developers 2.5 M
(in millions) On-device (consumer electronics) Web

Lua 1.8 M On-device (consumer electronics) Mobile

*including TypeScript/CoffeeScript
State of the Developer Nation Q1 2024 | © SlashData | Some rights reserved 9
Sizing programming language communities

JavaScript remains the largest

language community

JavaScript continues to take the top spot for programming

languages, with approximately 25.2M active developers The JavaScript community grew by
worldwide. JavaScript’s dominant position is unlikely to
change anytime soon, with its developer population 4M users in the last 12 months
increasing by 4M developers over the last 12 months, with a
growth rate in line with the global developer population
growth. However, JavaScript sees its lowest adoption rate
among early-career developers (52%), those with less than
three years of experience, compared to more than 62% of
developers with three or more years of experience. JavaScript’s large community is driven by the widespread use of the
language across all types of development projects, with at least
25% of developers in every project type using it. Even in
This suggests that its growth is a result of more experienced development areas not commonly associated with the language,
developers adding the language to their roster, rather than such as on-device coding for IoT projects, JavaScript still sees
being primarily driven by the influx of less experienced considerable adoption.
developers. Nonetheless, early-career developers are more
likely to use JavaScript than any other language community,
meaning that even if JavaScript's meteoric rise slows, it is
unlikely to be dethroned anytime soon.

State of the Developer Nation Q1 2024 | © SlashData | Some rights reserved 10

Sizing programming language communities

Python and Java continue to battle it out for the second spot, After Java, we see a gap of roughly 6M to the next largest
with Python receiving the silver medal in Q1 2024 with 18.2M community, C++ with 11.4 M developers, closely trailed by C#
developers compared to Java’s 17.7M. This comes about after (10.2M) and PHP (9.8M). At the other end of the spectrum, of the
Python added more than 2.1M net new developers to its remaining leading languages Objective-C (2.7M), Ruby (2.5M), and
community over the last 12 months, compared to Java which Lua (1.8M) are the smallest language communities.
only increased by 1.2M developers. Python’s growth can be, in
part, attributed to the current fervour around machine
learning and AI, for which Python has many well-established
packages with supportive communities.

Java has seen an increase in its usage among developers

involved in backend services and web application
development, but has maintained the same proportion of Contact us to explore all segmentation
mobile developers and a decreasing proportion of desktop options.
application developers. This altogether means that while Java
is still one of the most popular languages, Python has
overtaken it over the last year.

State of the Developer Nation Q1 2024 | © SlashData | Some rights reserved 11

Sizing programming language communities

Rust continues its fast growth

Rust has nearly doubled in size over
As highlighted previously, JavaScript’s top position is unlikely the past two years, growing from 2M
to be challenged in the near future, especially as the growth
to 4M users.
rate of JavaScript (17%) over the last year gives it a
substantial lead over Python (13%) and Java (7%). Of the top
three, only JavaScript is growing in line with the overall
developer population (17% over the last 12 months).

Rust has developed a passionate community that advocates for it

Among the smaller language communities, we see much more
as a memory-safe language which can provide great performance,
dynamic changes in their populations. Rust is the stand-out
but cybersecurity concerns may lead to an even greater increase.
community for its growth, almost doubling its number of
The USA and its international partners have made the case in the
users over the past two years (from 2M in Q1 2022 to 4M in
last six months for adopting memory-safe languages1. While Rust is
Q1 2024) and by 33% in the last 12 months alone.
not unique in this capability, its performance benefits alongside
being memory-safe are likely to lead to further growth in this
developer community.

1 NSAPress Release: U.S. and International Partners Issue Recommendations to Secure

Software Products Through Memory Safety

State of the Developer Nation Q1 2024 | © SlashData | Some rights reserved 12

Sizing programming language communities

Go had previously been outpacing the global developer In contrast to Rust and Go’s strong growth, Objective-C has
population growth, growing by 55% over the past two years, stagnated for the last two years. The number of Objective-C users
from 3M in Q1 2022 to 4.7M in Q1 2024. However, Go has only has hovered around 2.5M developers over this period and in terms
seen its developer population grow by 10% over the last year. of language rankings, it has dropped from 12th to 14th, being
This may represent a cooling off of Go’s rise or merely a small overtaken by both Dart and Rust. While Apple continues to support
period of reduced growth. Go overall is an appealing the language, we do not anticipate a growth in users in the coming
language due to its performance capabilities, simplifying years or a reversal of this trend, especially with Swift being the go-
concurrency, and being easy to read. This has led to it being to language for all Apple platforms. Swift has seen a small growth
used by 10% of backend service developers, as well as among over the past 12 months (5%) to 4.6M developers, which led to it
games developers (5%). Go’s comprehensive standard library being overtaken by Go. However, over the past 24 months, Swift
that reduces reliance on third-party dependencies likely added more than 1.1M developers to its community. While Swift is
benefits its popularity among those working in backend continuing to grow, we would expect Rust to be a larger language
services, as this can help reduce a software’s attack surface. within the next year if both continue their current growth
trajectories.

State of the Developer Nation Q1 2024 | © SlashData | Some rights reserved 13

Sizing programming language communities

Ranking of programming languages over the last two years

Q1 2022 Q3 2022 Q1 2023 Q3 2023 Q1 2024
1 Javascript*
2 Python
3 Java

4 C++

5 C#

6 PHP
7 Visual development tools

8 C

9 Kotlin

10 Go

11 Swift

12 Rust

13 Dart
14 Objective-C

15 Ruby

16 Lua

*including TypeScript/CoffeeScript

State of the Developer Nation Q1 2024 | © SlashData | Some rights reserved 14

Sizing programming language communities

PHP and C# are less popular

among early-career developers

While many factors determine what programming languages JavaScript sees its lowest adoption rate among early-career
developers use, in this section, we intend to highlight some developers (52%) compared to mid-career and experienced
divides that exist based on the experience levels of developers (63% and 62%, respectively). While the adoption
developers. In general, mid-career developers (those with proportion is substantially lower than developers at later stages of
three to ten years of software development experience) are their careers, it is still the most popular language among early-
using more languages, on average (3.7), than both early- career developers. However, it also suggests the entrenched
career developers with less than three years of experience, ubiquity of JavaScript is a self-fulfilling prophecy, as developers
(3.1) and experienced (3.4) developers who have 11 or more adopt it as they gain experience and exposure to work with projects
years of experience. This is likely because early-career that already use JavaScript due to its existing popularity. This then
developers are still exploring and learning, and more helps further foster JavaScript’s dominant position at the top and
experienced developers have specialised their focus, while continues the cycle.
mid-career developers are working across a range of projects
of different scales and complexities.

State of the Developer Nation Q1 2024 | © SlashData | Some rights reserved 15

Sizing programming language communities

Our research also suggests that the more experienced

developers are more likely to use C# and PHP than their The use of C# and PHP increases
early-career peers. This is especially apparent for C#, where
experienced developers (32%) are twice as likely to use it
considerably among the more
compared to early career developers (16%). For C#, this is experience developers
partly driven by the greater concentration of experienced
developers in the desktop and backend services development
areas. These two development areas have much higher usage
of C# (39% and 31%, respectively) than the global average
(24%), and C# usage is also more popular in these two areas
PHP has no similar experience and area overlaps and it appears to
among experienced developers. This leads to an overall
be driven by an overall lower interest in PHP by less experienced
increase in the prevalence of C# among experienced
developers. Even in areas where PHP is relevant and early-career
developers.
developers are well represented, these developers are not adopting
PHP. For example, among web application developers, less than
20% of early-career developers are using PHP in their projects,
compared to more than 33% of experienced developers.

State of the Developer Nation Q1 2024 | © SlashData | Some rights reserved 16

Sizing programming language communities

Adoption of programming languages by experience in software development

Early career (<2 years) Mid-career (3-10 years) Experienced (11+ years)

63% 62%

52%

44% 44%
41% 41%
39% 39%

32%
27% 28% 27%
26% 25%
24%

18% 19%
16% 16% 17% 16%
14% 15%
13%
11% 12% 11%
8% 7%
6% 7% 5%

JavaScript* Python Java C++ C# PHP Visual C Kotlin Rust Objective-C

development
tools

% of developers using each language at each experience level (n=10,275)

*including TypeScript/CoffeeScript

State of the Developer Nation Q1 2024 | © SlashData | Some rights reserved 17

 METHODOLOGY
The Developer Nation Survey

The 26th edition of the Developer Nation survey reached more than 10,000 software, and apps/extensions for third-party app ecosystems. They also told us if
respondents from 135 countries around the world. As such, the Developer Nation they are into their areas of involvement as professionals, hobbyists, or students - or
series of surveys continues to be the most global independent research on mobile, as any combination of these - and how many years of experience they have in each.
desktop, industrial IoT, consumer electronics, embedded, third-party app
ecosystems, cloud, web, game, augmented and virtual reality, and machine learning
developers and data scientists combined, ever conducted. The report is based on a To eliminate the effect of regional sampling biases, we first weighted to correct for
large-scale, online developer survey designed, produced, and carried out by over-represented individual countries within regions. We then weighted the
SlashData over a period of ten weeks between November 2023 and February 2024. regional distribution across nine regions by a factor that was determined by the
regional distribution and growth trends identified in our Developer Nation research.
Each of the separate branches: mobile, desktop, Industrial IoT, consumer
Respondents to the online survey came from 136 countries, including major app electronics, embedded software, third-party app ecosystems, cloud, web, games,
and machine learning development hotspots such as the US, China, India, Israel, and augmented and virtual reality, and data science and machine learning were
the UK, even stretching all the way to Kenya, Brazil, and Jordan. The geographic weighted independently and then combined.
reach of this survey is truly reflective of the global scale of the developer economy.
The online survey was translated into nine languages in addition to English, namely
simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Vietnamese, To minimise other important sampling biases across our outreach channels, we
Russian, Japanese, and Korean, and was promoted by more than 75 leading weighted the responses to derive a representative distribution for technologies
community and media partners within the software development industry. used and developer segments. Using ensemble modelling methods, we derived a
weighted distribution based on data from independent, representative channels,
excluding the channels of our research partners, to eliminate sampling bias due to
Our respondents came from a broad age spectrum, from young coders and respondents who were recruited via these channels. Again, this was performed
creators who are under 18 to the seasoned ones over 55. separately for each of mobile, industrial IoT, consumer electronics, embedded
software, third-party app ecosystems, desktop, cloud, web, games, augmented and
virtual reality, and data science and machine learning.
Respondents were asked which types of projects they are involved in out of the 13
under study, namely web apps / SaaS, mobile apps, desktop apps, backend
For more information on our methodology please visit
services, augmented reality, virtual reality, games, data science, machine learning /
Our methodology page
artificial intelligence, industrial IoT, consumer electronics devices, embedded