C++ overtakes Java in language popularity index

C++ ranks higher than Java in the Tiobe language popularity index for the first time ever, dating back to 2001. Java slipped to a new low in the latest edition of the index.

The December 2002 Tiobe Programming Community Index has C++, ranked third, surpassing Java, ranked fourth. It is the first time in the history of the index that Java has not ranked in the index’s top three languages.

“Performance is still very important nowadays and C++ is the fastest large system programming language out there,” said Paul Jansen, CEO at software quality services provider Tiobe. But all is not dire for Java, he stressed. “Java has nothing to worry about so far. I am saying this because it also grew in popularity in 2022 (plus-1.70%), but not as much as the top three languages.”

The Tiobe index ranks languages based on searches of Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other sources. Ratings are based on the number of engineers worldwide, courses, and third-party vendors pertinent to each language.

The top 10 languages in the Tiobe index for December 2022:

1. Python, with a rating of 16.66%
2. C, 16.56%
3. C++, 11.94%
4. Java, 11.82%
5. C#, 4.92%
6. Visual Basic, 3.94%
7. JavaScript, 3.19%
8. SQL, 2.22%
9. Assembly, 1.87%
10. PHP, 1.62%

Java still leads C++ in the alternative Pypl Popularity of Programming Language Index, which ranks languages based on how often language tutorials are searched in Google. 

The top 10 languages in the Pypl index for December 2022:

1.  Python, with a 28.34% share
2. Java, 16.93%
3. JavaScript, 9.28%
4. C#, 6.89%
5. C/C++, 6.64%
6. PHP, 5.19%
7. R, 3.98%
8. TypeScript, 2.79%
9. Swift, 2.23%
10. Objective-C, 2.22%