Has the Rust Programming Language's Popularity Reached Its Plateau? (tiobe.com)
- Reference: 0181654284
- News link: https://developers.slashdot.org/story/26/04/12/2329229/has-the-rust-programming-languages-popularity-reached-its-plateau
- Source link: https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/
Back in 2020 Rust first entered the top 20 of his "TIOBE Index," which ranks programming language popularity using search engine results. Rust "was widely expected to break into the top 10," he remembers today. But it never happened, and "That was nearly six years ago...."
> Since then, Rust has steadily improved its ranking, even reaching its highest position ever (#13) at the beginning of this year. However, just three months later, it has dropped back to position #16. This suggests that Rust's adoption rate may be plateauing.
>
> One possible explanation is that, despite its ability to produce highly efficient and safe code, Rust remains difficult to learn for non-expert programmers. While specialists in performance-critical domains are willing to invest in mastering the language, broader mainstream adoption appears more challenging. As a result, Rust's growth in popularity seems to be leveling off, and a top 10 position now appears more distant than before.
Or, could Rust's sudden drop in the rankings just reflect flaws in TIOBE's ranking system? In January GitHub's senior director for developer advocacy argued AI was pushing developers toward typed languages, since types "catch the exact class of surprises that AI-generated code can sometimes introduce... A 2025 academic study found that a whopping [2]94% of LLM-generated compilation errors were type-check failures ." And last month Forbes even described Rust as "the [3]the safety harness for vibe coding. ."
A year ago Rust was ranked #18 on TIOBE's index — so it still rose by two positions over the last 12 months, hitting that all-time high in January. Could the rankings just be fluctuating due to anomalous variations in each month's search engine results? [4]Since January Java has fallen to the #4 spot, overtaken by C++ (which moved up one rank to take Java's place in the #3 position).
Here's TIOBE's current estimate for the 10 most popularity programming languages:
Python
C
C++
Java
C#
JavaScript
Visual Basic
SQL
R
Delphi/Object Pascal
TIOBE estimates that tthe next five most popular programming languages are Scratch, Perl, Fortran, PHP, and Go.
[1] https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/
[2] https://arxiv.org/pdf/2504.09246
[3] https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbestechcouncil/2026/03/03/rust-the-unlikely-engine-of-the-vibe-coding-era/
[4] https://developers.slashdot.org/story/26/01/11/0532214/c-and-c-grew-in-popularity-in-2025-says-tiobe
Rust is a specialist language (Score:5, Insightful)
It is aimed at systems programming, not regular application development. That limits its scope. It is also hard to learn. Hence there is a natural limit to its "popularity". Not that popularity actually matters that much.
Re: (Score:2)
Perl was also hard to master
[1]http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/... [quickmeme.com]
[1] http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3rw5y1
Re:Rust is a specialist language (Score:4, Interesting)
But not hard to learn. There is a difference.
Re: (Score:2)
I've got about 5 cli tools that i use every day that replace core utils (exa to replace ls for example) so in my experience that's not the case.
Re: (Score:1)
What are the other 4, im genuinely curious. also mad respect for that 007 >
Re: Rust is a specialist language (Score:3)
lol
Re: (Score:3)
It's aimed at anything C++ would be used for, and is being used in the same scopes. Some system programming, some application programming. Chrome is now accepting Rust code, and of course Rust originated at Mozilla, and was intended to be the language Firefox would migrate to. An artifact of that effort, Servo, is still under development as an independent project.
I don't think it's anywhere near plateaued FWIW. It has an excited cohort of programmers using it who are as annoying... I mean... enthusiastic as
Re: (Score:2)
> It does need some clean up in some areas, specifically the NPM/composer-style external library management which is a security nightmare and just plain idiotic.
Based on our experience with Node/NPM, that is never getting cleaned up.
Re: Rust is a specialist language (Score:2)
I use it for basically everything. No problems. It's also second to none for multithreading and concurrency.
It also turns out that the people who have the most difficulty with it are older people who spent most of their lives on OOP and being able to just ignore concepts like RAII any time they want. Whereas newer developers who started with it as their first or second systems language tend to master it relatively quickly.
No coincidence that rust code has a much lower defect rate than "easy" languages like
Re: (Score:3)
Do you use a ton of existing crates? If so how do you determine what is appropriate to use? Do you worry about supply-chain attacks? It seems like every rust app I try to install with cargo pulls in a dozen or more dependencies. I have no idea how to vet them. As a mere user it seems like I'm trading one kind of vulnerability for another. This is not unique to rust of course. All the modern, hip languages do the same thing.
Not quite sure what you mean about ignoring concepts like RAII. Those go back to
Re: (Score:2)
It definitely seems like it was up and coming to replace all systems programming work and then just ... stalled out.
Rust Community has unfortunately made many, many people HATE them with a passion.
Who knows what the future will hold, but definitely seems like it might have stalled out.
It's also really hard to teach people who aren't as good at programming to use Rust well.
What is Rust (Score:3)
HA HA HA
Re: (Score:2)
"Rust" was that movie where, during the filming, Alec Baldwin fired a live round from a prop gun that killed the movie's cinematographer.
Until SystemD is written in Rust (Score:4, Funny)
nobody will take it seriously.
Please, no. (Score:2)
I already hate systemd, I don't need you people to make it into an even greater abomination. Do you want to have programmers start making blood oath's the destroy systemd? Because this how you get blood oaths!
DsystemD (Score:2)
We should rewrite SystemD in D and call it DsystemD.
(Yes, I program in D, but I avoid SystemD, thanks to Gentoo Linux letting me stick with OpenRC.)
I see cargo installers everywhere lately (Score:2)
Unfortunately half of them break. Still I expect to see Rust continue to rise if Zig doesn't steal its thunder.
Re: I see cargo installers everywhere lately (Score:3)
Zig and rust aren't trying to do the same thing. I'd look at zig more as a competitor to C. I've heard good things about it, haven't tried it. C++ tried to replace C until it became apparent that c++ is only good for making buggy and insecure code that needs to run faster but less reliably than Java.
Rust is only meant to replace c++, which it has already done. C++ is currently in the same graveyard orbit as cobol, only sticking around for the sake of legacy code.
Re: (Score:2)
I think maybe you either only work in a certain POV of the world of software development or just totally have no clue.
C++ has not at all died and has been increasing in enterprise business usage, mostly at the loss of Java and C# code. Also it's been growing in popularity in embedded usage.
Delphi (Score:2)
The tenth most popular language is Delphi, a language that started dying in the late 90s, when its creator moved to Microsoft to invent C# (which replaced Delphi and made the partners that used to develop Delphi components change focus towards C#). And all of that despite Embarcadero (which doesn't advance Delphi that much since decades ago). Impressive.
Re: (Score:2)
Delphi has undergone growth - not sure where you got off the train. But, despite supporting Linux, Mac, iOS and Android dev, it remains a Windows focused language and tool. And, unless one is using the community edition, it is expensive. Cost is its major downside. And, of course, the fact that it's object oriented (now, taboo), it probably won't climb the charts.
FreePascal is mostly a Delphi compatible version of Object Pascal but supports something like 32 different platforms.
Re: (Score:3)
[1]Lazarus [lazarus-ide.org] is an open-source Delphi alternative, with some [2]pluses and minuses [github.com] in the comparison.
[1] https://www.lazarus-ide.org/
[2] https://github.com/ideasawakened/delphi-and-fpc-lazarus-comparison
No. Yes. (Score:3)
Rust's reason to exist has not gone away. Rust will continue to slowly replace C and C++ in systems programming where it makes sense.
In other areas where it seems more like people are creating yet another version of a classic utility but in Rust, the answer is, "yes I sure hope so."
The problem with all modern programming languages now comes down to supply chain risk. Even the simplest utilities depend on dozens of crates to be pulled into my computer from who knows where. Go, Dart, Python, Node.js, all have this problem. I just installed a cool utility (written in Rust of course) that pulled in 50 dependencies. I am to trust that they are all good of course. Still it seems a little excessive for a utility that does graphical browsing of disk usage (darya). But hey it's a modern utility.
Maybe it will settle into just being a useful tool, like it was intended.
My ideal language (Score:1)
The conciseness of C and terse C++.
The performance of the former. Perhaps by excising some aspects of the latter.
Introspection. Generics. Named function parameters (honestly zero impact on run time since this entirely solvable at compile time and no changes to abi required).
Curly braces and semicolons. Because I'm not writing code for 80 column punch cards and occasionally it is useful to place two statements onto one line for conciseness and readability.
Deterministic memory handling and bare metal access w
Go went from #7 to just above Rust (Score:2)
I'm more interested in how Go went from #7 in July to #15 in April, just above Rust, in the TIOBE index. Go is much easier than Rust to learn and use. Comparing Rust and Go in the charts, the Rust ratings have mostly been going up since 2017, while Go seems to have stayed flat, with the exception of two spikes.
Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated. (Score:3)
AI is the new Borg queen.
Rust is irrelevant. Memory safety is irrelevant. Languages are irrelevant. Programming is irrelevant. You will be assimilated.
SOMEBODY dropped the ball (Score:2)
This is the first TIOBE story we've seen in several months! Which editor has been out sick?
Perl (Score:2)
"The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated."— Perl
Well, with a name like RUST (Score:2)
... I don't suppose you can last forever.
Re:Netcraft confirms it... (Score:4, Funny)
I'm sorry but you appear not to have gotten the memos, it's "woke" now. I know, it probably took you ages to stop using "n---er lover" and start using "PC" and then "SJW", but we've had to change the word again so libs don't realize we're actually racist shitheads.