Kotlin, Swift, and Ruby See Decline in Tiobe Programming Index
The latest Tiobe Programming Community Index, released on April 7, shows a noticeable decline in the popularity of Kotlin, Swift, and Ruby—three languages that had previously maintained stable positions within the top 20. According to Tiobe CEO Paul Jansen, these languages have now slipped to ranks 24 through 26, signaling a potential long-term downturn in their usage and relevance within the developer community.
Jansen attributes Kotlin and Swift’s decline to their specialization in mobile development—Kotlin primarily for Android and Swift for iOS. With the rise of robust cross-platform development tools and languages, the need for developers to rely solely on platform-specific languages has diminished. In the case of Ruby, Jansen believes the language has lost ground largely due to Python’s dominance, which has become the preferred choice for everything from web development to data science and automation.
The broader trend, Jansen noted, points toward a consolidation in the programming language market. Currently, the top 20 languages account for 83.56% of all usage tracked by the Tiobe index—an unusually high concentration. “The market is a bit defensive, preferring proven technology to trying out new technologies,” Jansen explained, suggesting that developers and organizations are opting for stability over experimentation in today’s landscape.
The Tiobe index, which measures language popularity based on metrics like the number of skilled engineers, tutorials, and vendor activity across platforms such as Google, Bing, and Amazon, continues to show Python in the lead with a 23.08% rating. Other top languages include C++, C, Java, and JavaScript. Meanwhile, the Pypl Popularity of Programming Language Index, which ranks languages based on search trends for tutorials, also places Python firmly at the top, further underscoring its widespread adoption across domains.