Main image of article JavaScript, Python Boast World's Largest Developer Communities

Which programming language has the biggest community worldwide? That’s a question SlashData attempts to answer on a regular basis. And based on its analysis, one thing is clear: JavaScript has assembled the largest “tribe.”

For its Q3 2021 analysis, SlashData turned to its usual methodology. First, it estimates there are 26.8 million active software developers in the world. Then, it surveys 19,000+ developers and uses their responses to estimate total community size for each programming language. Here’s the result:

According to this analysis, JavaScript isn’t just the language with the biggest community behind it—it’s also the fastest-growing. “4M developers joined the community in the last year—by far the highest growth in absolute terms across all languages—and upwards of 2.5M developers joined in the past six months alone,” reads the report accompanying the data. “Even in software sectors where JavaScript is not among developers’ top choices, like data science or embedded development, about a fourth of developers use it in their projects.”

Python is also growing fast. “Python now counts 11.3M users after adding 2.3M net new developers in the past 12 months,” the report continued. “That’s a 25% growth rate, one of the highest across all the large programming language communities of more than 7M users. The rise of data science and machine learning (ML) is a clear factor in Python’s popularity.”

If you’re interested in JavaScript, JavaScript.info offers an extensive walkthrough of fundamentals, including the ever-popular “Hello, world!” You can also check out hackr.io, which lists a variety of courses and tutorials for various languages. Mozilla’s site features a very nice rundown of the language’s basics. And if you’re truly stumped by some JavaScript-related conundrum, keep the millions of JavaScript developers out there in mind—they’ll be more than happy to help you.