RDEL #56: Analyzing the 2024 Stack Overflow Developer Survey: Most popular technologies (Part 3)
This week we conclude our series on the 2024 Stack Overflow Developer Survey by reviewing the most popular tools and technologies used by professional engineers today.
Welcome back to Research-Driven Engineering Leadership. Each week, we pose an interesting topic in engineering leadership, and apply the latest research in the field to drive to an answer.
In our final installment of the Stack Overflow Developer Survey, we discover: which technologies are professional developers using most?
The context
The Stack Overflow Annual Developer Survey is conducted to gather insights into the developer community's preferences, challenges, and trends. It covers various topics such as popular programming languages, tools, and technologies, as well as work environments, education, and demographics. The survey aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the developer landscape, helping inform industry practices and highlighting emerging trends.
We previously covered developer perspectives on what impacts productivity as well as how common and trust AI tools are. This week, we’ll look at the popularity of different tools and technologies (as well as what’s changed).
The research
The data for the 2024 Stack Overflow Developer Survey was collected through responses from over 65,000 global engineers who completed the main survey. Researchers asked engineers to share what technologies they use, as well as what excites them most. Below are the top findings (filtered for professional developers):
Top programming language: JavaScript
JavaScript has been the top language for every year since 2015.
Top database: PostgreSQL
It first debuted in the survey in 2018, and has since climbed to become the top most popular database technology over MySQL.
Top cloud platform: AWS
The share of usage was the same as last year, but Google Cloud and Azure slowly increased their share.
Top web framework: React
While Node.js is #2 for professional developers, it is #1 for developers learning to code.
Top async tool: JIRA
Atlassian products top the list for professional developers, with JIRA in a clear lead over its competitors. Engineers are eager to try tools (such as Shortcut or Linear), but have not gained a significant share just yet.
Top synchronous tool: Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams is the top used tool by professional software engineers, with Slack not far behind. Though this is not confirmed through the data, it is likely that Teams is used for professional engineers in larger enterprises, while Slack is more likely to be used by startups.
The application
With each passing year, different technologies rise and fall with the changing development ecosystem. This is what makes the Stack Overflow Developer Survey such a useful pulse of what engineers are using most, and what’s evolved over the last year.
A great way to use this data is to consider how popular (and commonly used) your team’s own tools are compared to the broader professional development community. While engineering teams should use the tools that align with their specific use cases, they should also be mindful of the community around these technologies and whether they are increasing or decreasing. Using out-of-date tooling can be challenging to maintain, and make it harder to hire and retain engineers. Conversely, teams shouldn’t necessarily jump at the most popular technology if the benefits don’t outweigh the switching costs.
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We hope this information gave you a sense of where your own team’s technologies lie compared to broader adoption. Happy Research Monday!
Lizzie