More than 600 programming languages currently exist; however, each one is rated different owing to how well it serves its purpose. Over time there come a few languages that end up becoming favourites and continue securing high appraise from developers.

Here are the top 10 programming languages of 2020, considering the change in important factors such as the job demand this year, online presence, compatibility with other languages and framework structure.

Python

Python continues to be the favourite language for programmers, especially beginners. It was after 2008 when the language started gaining ground with developers around the world.

Python is an open-source and object-oriented language and can be seamlessly integrated with C and C++ and compartmentalises CPU heavy tasks into C and C++, decreasing processing time.

It is easy to read and learn as it operates with minimalist language design frameworks like Django and Pyramid are prevalent among users. The language surpassed 1 million repositories on Github this year.

Facebook, Google, Spotify, and Instagram work on Python. A myriad of avenues such as Deep Learning, Machine Learning, and Big Data provides developers with many more opportunities with the language.

PYPL and StackOverflow both crowned Python with the top rank in their surveys this year.

Also read: What is the difference between Python 2 and Python 3?

JavaScript

JavaScript has grown to developers’ needs and now executes both the frontend and backend side of a project. Many libraries and frameworks exist for JavaScript. The more popular ones are React, Angular, and Vue.

Light-weighted, interpreted, and object-oriented, it has a large palette of presence covering the cloud, browsers, micro-controllers, and is most popular for browser programming.

More than 630k repositories exist for JavaScript on Github. JavaScript works really well for business models and solutions. Google, Facebook, Uber use JavaScript daily.

Also read: What’s the difference between Java and Javascript?

Java

Arguably the most well-known programming language of all time, Java has always been the go-to language when it comes to web development.

Java seems tailor-made for any Android app development and web applications. Akin to Python, Java also boasts over 1 million repositories on Github and is gaining a new wave of popularity because of Spring Boot, Java’s latest framework.

While the language manages memory in a strong, stable fashion, it also renders automatic garbage collection.

Java never slacks on performance and delivers a high standard of security. HCL, Qualcomm, Amazon, or any high-scale web application feeds on heavy usage of Java.

Also read: What is the difference between C++ and Java?

C/C++

These remain to be the fastest programming languages to-date. iOS, Microsoft Windows and many Google projects continue to be run on C++.

C and C++ facilitate the development of embedded systems, kernels, operating systems. They’re also preferred by seasoned developers who prefer the speed and stability of C++.

Many languages today have been built upon the characteristics and learning curve of C and C++.

Despite being one of the oldest languages, they continue to be used extensively by both users and companies with C having nearly 7 million repositories on Github and C++, amassing over 600k.

Companies using C and C++ are namely Spotify, Adobe, HP, Apple.

Also read: Top 7 games for kids to learn coding

Golang

Golang, otherwise known as Go, came as a solution to account for the humongous hardware and human resources at Google.

Many languages at the time didn’t provide the development scaling issue bugging Google constantly, for which Go was created. Go sports an easy to grasp syntax but is quite feature anaemic.

Albeit the lack of features hasn’t hurt its popularity as more than 700k repositories on Github leave users with a strong community.

Golang is ideal for building single-page-applications and lets developers write concurrent programs.

Other than Google, developers at Medium, Dailymotion, Uber find Go perfect for tackling their respective environments.

Also read: Flutter vs React Native vs Ionic vs Xamarin

Swift

Apart from Go, Swift is the only language that has come around the last decade. Developed by Chris Lattner from Apple to replace objective-C in the Mac and iOS platforms. In the last few years, Swift has seen a shift into a multi-paradigm, compiled language which makes it as fast as C++.

With a simpler, more concise syntax along with various developer ergonomic features, Swift has become the main engine of App development in Apple’s ecosystem.

Swift has only started to gather moss but has been ranked 9th in Stackoverflow’s ‘Most loved languages’ 2020 rankings with over 160,000 Github repositories.

Also read: Top 7 coding games

Kotlin

Kotlin made sure to leave a mark in 2019 when Android app developers started using its interoperability feature with Java and Android Studio.

It was an immediate hit and carried more or less the same reputation coming into 2020. The language walks along the lines of Go and Swift to give the user the ability of writing production-grade code with minimal bugs and fewer lines.

It is a secure and flexible language, with some popular frameworks like Vert.x and Spring. Kotlin has spread-out to multiple professional environments, some being Airtel, Pinterest, Slack, and Tello.

C#

C# started as an ambitious project to add an object-oriented language to Microsoft’s .NET initiative. It’s fully integrated with the .NET library due to which many iOS and Google projects occasionally see the of use C#.

Game and web development, Virtual Reality, and other the X-box see the use of this language.

C# has a modest 19,000 repositories on Github but access to a vast library such as .NET makes it useful for faster compilation and execution.

Also read: Android development: Java or Kotlin?

R

When it comes to the financial domain, R is the most sought after language for its ability to make statistical models.

It’s also popular for data science and machine learning. Libraries with more than 10,000 packages let users create expansive web applications.

Cross-platform compatibility makes R highly extensible, nearly 5 million repositories make it one of the most used languages.

PHP

PHP has been a part of the programming word for the better part of three decades. PHP didn’t set out to be a programming language, to begin with.

It was originally a set of Common Gateway Interface binaries in C for creating dynamic Web Applications. Adding more functionalities gave users a general-purpose, dynamic programming language.

80% of the websites today are still running on PHP. Some of them include Oracle, Facebook, WordPress, and Wikipedia.

PHP has lost popularity but is still used and learned by many developers. More than 540,000 repositories of PHP exist on Github.

Also read: How to install PHP on Windows manual?