Rust resumes rise in popularity

Rust, the fast and memory-safe programming language born out of Mozilla, has resumed its rise up the monthly Tiobe index of programming language popularity, although it still has not cracked the index’s top 10.

Rust returned to 13th place in the October edition of the Tiobe index, the highest spot the language has reached. Rust had ranked 13th in July before slipping to 14th place in August. An emphasis on security and speed is helping boost Rust’s place, even though the language is not easy to learn, said Paul Jansen, CEO of software quality services company Tiobe. Rust contrasts with index leader Python, which is easy to learn and secure but not fast, Jansen said. Jansen believes Rust is making its way to Tiobe’s top 10.

The Tiobe index rates programming languages based on the number of skilled engineers worldwide, courses offered, and third-party vendors pertinent to each language. The ratings are calculated by examining popular websites such as Google, Amazon, Wikipedia, and Bing.

The rival Pypl Popularity of Programming Language index already places Rust in the top 10. Once again finishing 10th in Pypl’s index for October, Rust has ranked 10th consistently since April 2024. The Pypl index assesses language popularity based on how often language tutorials are searched on Google.

Elsewhere in the Tiobe index for October, the Mojo language, described by Jansen as a mix of Python and Swift but much faster, entered the top 50 for the first time. It ranks 49th. “The fact that this language is only one year old and already showing up, makes it a very promising language,” Jansen said.

The Tiobe index top 10 for October 2024:

1. Python, 21.9%
2. C++, 11.6%
3. Java, 10.51%
4. C, 8.38%
5. C#, 5.62%
6. JavaScript, 3.54%
7. Visual Basic, 2.35%
8. Go, 2.02%
9. Fortran, 1.8%
10. Delphi/Object Pascal, 1.68%

The Pypl index top 10 for October 2024:

1. Python, 29.56%
2. Java, 15.66%
3. JavaScript, 8.16%
4. C/C++, 6.76%
5. C#, 6.58%
6. R, 4.64%
7. PHP, 4.2%
8. TypeScript, 2.95%
9. Swift, 2.64%
10. Rust, 2.55%