Print this page
Published in News

PHP on life support

by on15 April 2024


Plummets to all-time low in popularity

PHP has nosedived to its lowest-ever rank on the TIOBE index—coming in at a dismal #17.

It's now trailing behind Assembly Language, Ruby, Swift, Scratch, and MATLAB. InfoWorld's got the scoop, and it's unsuitable for our old web wizard.

In 2001, PHP was the hotshot on the verge of becoming the web's darling. It rubbed shoulders with the elite, hitting the top 3 between 2006 and 2010. But then came the new kids on the block—Ruby on Rails, Django, and React—strutting their stuff in Ruby, Python, and JavaScript, and PHP's star started to dim.

TIOBE’s Paul Jansen said the major driving languages behind these new frameworks were Ruby, Python, and, most notably, JavaScript.

“In addition to this competition, some security issues were found in PHP. As a result, PHP had to reinvent itself," he said.

PHP is still used on small and medium websites and is the muscle behind WordPress. But let's face it: "PHP is certainly not gone, but its glory days seem to be over," laments Jansen.

The rival Pypl Popularity of Programming Language Index throws shade at TIOBE, calling it a "lagging indicator" that counts web pages with the language name. And while "Objective-C" is lounging at #30 on TIOBE (just a smidge above Classic Visual Basic), Google Trends data whispers that nobody's giving those pages much love.

But wait to count PHP out! On Pypl, it's strutting its stuff at #7, based on how many folks are hunting down language tutorials.

Here's the crème de la crème of TIOBE's top ten:

1. Python

2.  C

3.  C++

4. Java

5. C#

6.  JavaScript

7.  Go

8.  Visual Basic

9. SQL

10. Fortran

Hot on their heels at #11 and #12? Delphi/Object Pascal and Assembly Language.

Last modified on 15 April 2024
Rate this item
(2 votes)