| # | Language | TIOBE % | GitHub % | SO % | Salary (k$) | Paradigm | Year | Compare |
|---|
Top 10 Languages by TIOBE Index
Language Comparison (select 2-4)
Four ways to measure a programming language
This page compares 25 programming languages on four yardsticks at once: TIOBE Index rating, share of GitHub activity, percentage of Stack Overflow survey respondents who use the language, and an approximate average US salary. Each row also shows a typical use (for example "Cloud/Backend" for Go), a paradigm tag and the year the language first appeared. Because no single ranking is authoritative, seeing them side by side is useful when you are choosing a first language, planning a hiring stack or checking whether a language's buzz matches its actual use.
How to use the rankings
- Pick a source tab (TIOBE Index, GitHub, Stack Overflow or Avg Salary). The table re-sorts by that column and the bar chart switches to the top 10 for that measure.
- Search by name, use or paradigm (typing "mobile" finds Dart, "data" finds Python, SQL, R and Scala), or choose a tag from the All Paradigms menu.
- Click any column heading to sort by it; click again to reverse. The # column numbers rows in the current order.
- Tick the Compare box on two to four rows to draw the radar chart. Remove a language with the × on its tag above the chart.
How the page calculates what you see
All 25 records live in a JavaScript array in the page; sorting, filtering and both charts run in your browser using Chart.js, loaded from cdn.jsdelivr.net. The small bars under each percentage are scaled to the highest value in that column. The radar chart puts every measure on a 0 to 100 scale relative to the top language in the dataset: Python's 16.5% TIOBE rating becomes 100, JavaScript's 65% Stack Overflow share becomes 100, and Rust's 140k salary becomes 100. The fifth axis, History, is the language's age counted from 2025 and divided by 76 years, so Assembly (1949) sits at 100 and Zig (2015) at about 13.
Data sources and limitations
The page cites the TIOBE Index, GitHub Octoverse and the Stack Overflow Developer Survey, covering 2024-2025, with salaries described as approximate US averages. These values are a static snapshot bundled with the page. They are not refreshed when the sources publish new editions (TIOBE monthly, the other two yearly), so compare with the originals for current numbers.
- TIOBE ratings are based on search-engine results for a language's name, which measures visibility rather than lines of code written.
- Octoverse mainly publishes rankings of languages by contributor activity; the GitHub percentages here are approximate shares, and a 0 (SQL, Perl, Matlab, Assembly, Haskell, COBOL) means no share was recorded, not that nobody uses the language on GitHub.
- Stack Overflow figures are the share of survey respondents using a language, so they add up to far more than 100% and reflect the people who answer that survey.
- Salaries vary hugely by country, seniority and employer. Treat the column as a rough relative comparison, not a pay benchmark.
- Each language gets one paradigm tag even though most support several; tags such as "JVM", "Typed" or "Compiled" describe a notable trait rather than a formal paradigm.
Frequently asked questions
Which language ranks first here?
Python leads on TIOBE (16.5%) and GitHub (22%), while JavaScript leads the Stack Overflow column at 65% of respondents. On salary, Rust tops the list at about 140k dollars, followed by Go and Scala at 135k.
Why do the sources disagree so much?
They count different things. TypeScript, for instance, has a modest 1.7% TIOBE rating but 12% of GitHub activity and 38% Stack Overflow usage, because it is heavily used in real projects without generating as many search results under its own name.
Is the #1 language the best one to learn?
Not necessarily. Popularity says little about fit: Swift and Kotlin rank low overall but are the main languages for iOS and Android apps. Start from what you want to build, then use the rankings to judge job demand.
Does the page send my selections anywhere?
No. Searches and comparison choices stay in your browser and are not saved or transmitted.