Longtime favorite for web development falls to 30th in the Tiobe index of language popularity. ‘There is no need for Ruby anymore.’ Credit: Finesell/Shutterstock The Ruby language has been around since 1995 and still gets regular releases. But the language has dropped to 30th place in this month’s Tiobe index of language popularity, with Python cited as a reason for Ruby’s drop. Ruby was the Tiobe language of the year in 2006, having displayed the highest growth rate in popularity that year, it is now close to dropping out of the top 30, according to Tiobe CEO Paul Jansen. Ruby’s March rating is .55%; the language was ranked 25th last month. “The main reason for Ruby’s drop is Python’s popularity. There is no need for Ruby anymore,” Jansen said. Ruby’s highest position was an eighth place ranking in May 2016. Also in this month’s index, SQL, with a rating of 2%, and R, with a rating of 1.88%, swapped places in the top 10, with SQL now ranking eighth and R ninth. In addition, Swift re-entered the top 20 with a rating of 1.04%, while Kotlin fell to 22nd with a rating of .82%. And Google’s Dart language, once positioned as a rival to JavaScript, is on a path to sneaking back into the top 20. Dart ranked 25th this month with a rating of .69%. The Tiobe Programming Community Index gauges language popularity based on a formula that assesses the number of skilled engineers worldwide, courses, and third-party vendors pertinent to a language. Popular websites such as Google, Amazon, Bing, Wikipedia, and more than 20 others are used to calculate the ratings. In the bulletin accompanying this month’s index, Jansen addressed inquiries about switching from search engines to large language models (LLMs) to formulate the ratings. “The answer is no,” Jansen said. “The Tiobe index measures how many internet pages exist for a particular programming language. LLMs ultimately rely on the same sources—they are trained on and analyze these very same web pages. Therefore, in essence, there is no real difference.” The Tiobe index top 10 for March 2025: Python, 21.25% C, 11.55% C++, 8.18% Java, 7.99% C#, 6.36% JavaScript, 3.45% Visual Basic, 2.5% SQL, 2% R, 1.88% Delphi/Object Pascal, 1.8% The Pypl Popularity of Programming Language index gauges language popularity by analyzing how often language tutorials are searched on in Google. The Pypl index top 10 for March 2025: Python, 34.87% C/C++, 13.66% Java, 9.82% R, 6.49% JavaScript, 6.49% Swift, 3.5% Rust, 3.08% C#, 3.03% PHP, 2.9% Ada, 2.66% Programming LanguagesPythonRubySoftware Development