The open source community on GitHub is getting bigger and bigger and thanks to the Open Source Contributor Index (OSCI) we can see what commercial companies are the biggest contributors. Another useful insight that can be found there is what the most popular programming languages are used by these companies. This is an interesting indicator that shows not only how software is built but also what types of software are gaining popularity.
In this article, we'll have a look at what the most popular programming languages in 2022 were according to the GitHub report, why exactly these languages and will compare it to similar reports in previous years. Also, we've recently prepared a post about the best artificial intelligence (AI) programming languages. Take a look, to learn more.
Open Source Programming Language Popularity in 2022
Although more than 500 programming languages were used in 2022, Java, JavaScript, and Python remain the leading ones. While TypeScript has seen a considerable rise in the last couple of years and remained in the fourth position, PHP is still on its sharp way down ending up at the seventh position in 2022. After some unstable periods in popularity, C# keeps stable at the fifth position for the second year in a row. Although it's experienced a sharp decline in popularity since 2015, Ruby has stayed at the tenth position for the last four years.
Top programming languages on GitHub in 2022 (Source: GitHub)
Programming Languages on the Rise in 2022
Although it's still not on the list of the ten most popular programming languages in the open source community, Hashicorp Configuration Language (HCL) with a 56,1% increase in popularity is the fastest-growing language according to GitHub. This is mainly due to the need to automate deployment. It's closely followed by Rust which has recorded a 50,5% rise in popularity explained by its reliability and security.
With 34,2% growth Lua is the fourth fastest-growing language in 2022. It's used mainly for application, IoT, and game development projects, and since these domains are on the rise as well Lua as a scripting language is rising along. As a relatively new programming language, Go is becoming increasingly popular mostly because of its interoperability, ease of use, and powerful functionalities applied in cloud development.
Generally, it's obvious that mobile application development is on the rise and consequently programming languages used for these purposes are also gaining in popularity. With 22,9 % of growth, Kotlin is definitely one of them. Although Python is already among the 10 most popular programming languages used for open-source projects, making a rise of 22,5 % in 2022, it's definitely still on its way up.
2020 Analysis of Most Popular Programming Languages On GitHub
We did a much more detailed analysis of the most popular programming languages used by commercial organizations on GitHub in 2020. It would be interesting to compare the findings that we had two years ago with the ones that we just presented for the year 2022. Let's have a closer look at previous research and try and draw some conclusions. This data serves as a benchmark that will enable a future analysis to explore the trends over time as some languages grow in usage and others decline.
For this study, we picked an 18-month period from the start of 2019 to mid-2020 and analyzed the commitments made by employees of commercial organizations. In line with OSCI's ranking methodology, we used email domains to associate commits with companies and utilized GitHub's classification of the primary language of the repository to which the commits are made.
Language Popularity Across All Companies in the OSCI in 2020
First, let's look at the language popularity across all commercial activity on GitHub.
Java turned out to be the most popular, followed by five to six languages at broad levels of popularity – C++, JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, Go and C.
In total, commits were made to repositories associated with 179 programming languages. Repositories using the top 10 languages accounted for 83% of commits, and the remaining 169 languages made up the other 17% of commits.
Language Popularity for the Top Five Companies in the OSCI in 2020
Next, we focused on the activity of the top five companies in the OSCI—Google, Microsoft, Intel, IBM, and RedHat—and saw a rather different picture.
In total, across the top five, PowerShell and Go appeared to be much more dominant than they are for the 'all companies' view, whereas Java and JavaScript were relatively less popular.
C++, Python, C and Typescript had similar levels of popularity among the top five as for the rest of the companies.
A Deeper Dive into the Most Popular Languages at the Top Five Companies in the OSCI
To better understand what is driving the popularity of the languages used by the top five companies in the OSCI, let's take a deeper look at the breakdown of languages used at each individual company.
This diagram reveals many interesting details, including:
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PowerShell and C# repositories were popular only at Microsoft and together accounted for over 50% of the company's activity, which is why PowerShell repository commits ranked as the most popular language across the top five companies in the previous diagram.
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Go had significant use at all five companies.
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Python was also used significantly at every company – particularly at RedHat.
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Java was popular at all of these companies, except Intel where its usage was just 3%.
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At Intel, C and C++ dominated, making up 75% of all activity while the rest of the companies used a more diverse set of languages.
As shown in the graph below, Google made commits to repositories with the largest number of languages, closely followed by Microsoft.
Normalized Rankings
We were curious about what would happen if we took the size of the company out of the equation so that the activity of a small company counted the same as a large company. This neutralizes the influence on the overall statistics of a large number of commits from big companies and better illustrates the breadth of language popularity across all companies in the OSCI.
The graph on the left below displays the normalized ranking where the activity of a smaller company counts just as much as that of a large company. In contrast, on the right, we repeat the same overall language popularity graph shown at the start of this article.
The first observation from this normalization is that JavaScript was the most broadly used language, followed closely by Java and Python. However, Java's dominance was more muted in the normalized view. The other most popular programming languages were Go, C++, C, and Typescript.
If we make a crude grouping of front-end versus back-end programming languages, JavaScript and Typescript together with HTML totaled 25%, whereas Java, Python, Go, C++, C, PHP, and C# totaled 55%.
It must also be noted that Powershell disappeared from the top 10 in this normalized view. In fact, in this analysis, its usage was less than 2%, which is not surprising considering that Microsoft alone accounted for 98% of all the commits made to Powershell repositories.
Conclusions of 2020 Analysis
From this study of the most popular programming languages in open-source projects contributed by commercial organizations, our observations include:
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The most generally popular open-source languages across the 300+ companies studied in the OSCI analysis were JavaScript, Java, Python, Go, C++, C, and Typescript.
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There were very different patterns in programming language usage across organizations. For example, languages like C and C++ were more dominant in some companies while other organizations displayed a broader range of language activity.
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Activity on repositories where the primary language was a traditional back-end language was over double that on repositories where the primary language was a front-end language.
To summarize, our OSCI data provided valuable insight into language usage in open-source projects where employees of commercial organizations are active.
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Most Popular Programming Languages in 2023
Now that we've analyzed the trend in popularity within the open-source community, let's have a closer look at some of these most popular programming languages.
JavaScript Programming Language
This is the most popular programming language for web development. Around 97% of websites use JavaScript on the client side. Almost all the engaging interactive elements of web pages are created using JavaScript, while HTML and CSS are used for static web elements. When these languages are used in conjunction developers achieve better website control, readability, navigation, and user experience in general. Apart from its extensive use in web development, JavaScript is also used for both desktop and mobile app development, games, CMS, and ERP systems, to name some. Thanks to the Node.js framework it is now possible to use JavaScript not only for client-side development but for back-end as well.
Pros
JavaScript is highly interoperable, quick, and straightforward. It's also got some powerful features along with the new ones constantly being developed. Besides these advantages, one of the main reasons for its popularity is that it's rather easy language to learn and implement thanks to its straightforward syntax. In addition, numerous communities, courses, and many other different kinds of professional online help are available to those who try to learn it.
Cons
On the other hand, one of the main disadvantages of JavaScript is the fact that it can be differently interpreted by different internet browsers so it makes it not so suitable for writing cross-browser code. JavaScript is often used to write pop-up adverts that can be potentially harmful so some internet browsers prevent the execution of JavaScript code for security reasons.
Python Programming Language
There are many reasons why Python as a general-purpose programming language is constantly gaining in popularity. Its simplicity and great applicability make it one of the most powerful programming languages. It is quite a universal, open-source programming language and can be used for various purposes - from desktop and web apps to video games and API development. It's also used in data science, machine learning, and deep learning applications. Also, developers can test their code as they write it which is very time-efficient.
Pros
Python is a popular programming language among beginners because of its readability and English-like syntax. It's also got extensive libraries, many different frameworks, and strong community support. These are some of the reasons Python is recommended as one of the top programming languages to learn.
Cons
One of the disadvantages of this universal language is that it requires a lot of memory to work properly and be user-friendly. This is one of the reasons Python is used mostly for backend development rather than frontend and not so often for applications that have memory optimization as one of the priorities, such as in mobile application development.
Java Programming Language
Java is an object-oriented programming language that has long been among the most popular ones mainly thanks to its versatility. It relies on Java virtual machine (JVM) installed on almost all modern machines which makes it possible for Java to run on any platform and all operating systems and this is what makes the key difference between Java and other programming languages. It's a programming language used for creating web and mobile applications, video games, and big-data apps, to name some of the main use cases. Thanks to its security and ability to handle massive amounts of data, it's also often applied in the banking and finance sector in general.
Pros
As we've already mentioned, the main advantage of Java is that it can run on almost any system and that's why it's commonly described as a 'write-once, run-anywhere' language. Although Java is not the easiest programming language to learn and might not be the first choice of a new software developer, there are many online learning resources that can be useful and it has a very wide community of Java programmers who support each other.
Cons
As with any other programming language, Java has its own drawbacks and one of them is that it takes a bit longer to learn all the vocabulary. Also, it's more suitable for server-based applications than for cloud-based ones.
C# Programming Language
This is another object-oriented programming language widely used for general purposes. It was developed by Microsoft and is used in combination with the .NET framework. It is mostly used for Android development, Windows, iOS, game development, and virtual reality applications.
Pros
Since this is one of the most popular programming languages, it has an extensive community in which new C# developers can ask for help and support. This makes this programming language easier to learn than some other programming languages that have been recently developed.
Cons
When it comes to C# drawbacks, it is a bit less flexible than other programming languages since it relies on the .NET framework so might be difficult to fit it into the overall tech stack.
TypeScript Programming Language
As we've seen in the diagrams above, TypeScript is one of the fastest-growing and most popular programming languages in the GitHub community. It's built on top of JavaScript and is basically a typed superset of this programming language. It contains all the powerful features JavaScript has, but also overcomes some of the main drawbacks it has especially when it comes to server-side development. In addition to regular JavaScript syntax, TypeScript has a syntax that supports types.
What developers do is write the code in TypeScript and then using the TypeScript compiler compile it into plain JavaScript code. After that, the code is ready to be deployed to any JavaScript environment.
Pros
One of the major benefits of TypeScript is that it decreases the number of bugs detected at runtime. Thanks to typing being applied many bugs are identified during compiling instead of while the script is being run.
Cons
When thinking about the disadvantages of TypeScript, one of them is related to typing as well. Although it is a very useful system, TypeScript it's quite complex and can be difficult to apply correctly.
Go Programming Language
This is an open-source programming language developed by Google and is one of the programming languages this company uses the most for open-source projects. Go is mainly used for backend web development, but also for cloud, DevOps, artificial intelligence, machine learning packages, data science, and audio and video editing. Thanks to this broad application, it's predicted that it will be one of the fastest-growing languages in 2023.
Pros
It's among more modern languages and is famous for its simplicity and ability to handle massive codebases and multicore and networked systems. That's why it's mainly used by developers working on big projects. Garbage collection and structural typing are also among the most advanced features. It is often compared to C and C++ programming languages because of its high performance but Go has a much simpler syntax which makes it easier to learn. Thanks to its agility and performance it's getting more popular among data scientists.
Cons
Along with all the listed advantages Go has, it's also got some disadvantages. Since it belongs to new programming languages, it still hasn't got comprehensive frameworks or libraries nor a supportive community that might help developers trying to learn this popular programming language.
C and C++ Programming Languages
Created back in the 1970s, C is one of the oldest programming languages. As such, it was the bases for other languages such as JavaScript, Java, and C#. C++ was made as an improved version of C. Both C and C++ can be used for application development projects. C is also commonly used for system programming and embedded devices, while C++ is popular for software with high graphic demands, such as games.
Pros
These two languages are both considered to be high-performance which makes them still very popular for software development where performance is one of the biggest priorities. They are also highly portable across operating systems as well which is another very important advantage.
Cons
Regarding disadvantages, these programming languages have quite a complex syntax. It makes them not so easy to learn and also difficult to debug especially because there's no garbage collection feature.
PHP Programming Language
This is one of the oldest programming languages, created in 1990. Although its popularity is declining, it is still very popular and commonly used. PHP is an open-source language mainly used for server-side programming in web development.
Pros
Simplicity, speed, and flexibility are PHP's main characteristics. It can be used on many operating systems and is very flexible with database connectivity. It can be used with various databases such as MySQL, mSQL, MS-SQL, SQLite, PostgreSQL, ElasticSearch, Redis, MongoDB, and many others.
Since it's been around for quite a long time it has a broad community of software developers who support each other and that's one of the reasons why it's relatively easy to learn.
Cons
Apart from all the benefits it has, there are some drawbacks to be considered. Since it's an interpreted language it might take some time for PHP to execute. Also, it is not the best choice for large applications and cannot support a large number of apps.
Ruby Programming Language
Ruby is an object-oriented programming language that was developed in the 1990s but has gained popularity in the last decade. It's suitable for big projects and together with the Ruby on Rails framework, it is commonly used for the development of web apps.
Pros
Using Ruby, the development of web applications is quite undemanding and quick. It has a syntax that is very easy to read and write. As such it is much easier to learn Ruby than many other languages which makes it very popular among beginners.
Cons
Sometimes the performance and stability might be influenced by low runtime and boot speed. Also, it might be rather challenging to change its core codebase.
Bottomline
In this article, we've tried to focus on in-demand programming languages and the ones most commonly used in the open-source community. It is not only interesting to follow the trends but can also be very useful when making the decision on which programming language to use for your new projects.
