Every month, the TIOBE Index publishes a ranking of the most popular programming languages in the world. It is not about the best language, but the most sought-after — how many programmers work with it, how many courses exist, how many employers demand it.
August 2026 is a summer month — movements are slower, but surprises are not lacking. The biggest one: MATLAB drops out of the top 20 for the first time in over a decade.
🔝 Top 20 programming languages – August 2026
| Aug 2026 | Aug 2025 | Language | Share | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | Python | 18.53% | 🔽 -7.61% |
| 2 | 3 | C | 11.10% | 🔼 +2.07% |
| 3 | 2 | C++ | 8.62% | 🔽 -0.56% |
| 4 | 4 | Java | 8.25% | 🔽 -0.34% |
| 5 | 5 | C# | 4.09% | 🔽 -1.43% |
| 6 | 6 | JavaScript | 2.63% | 🔽 -0.52% |
| 7 | 7 | Visual Basic | 2.18% | 🔽 -0.15% |
| 8 | 12 | SQL | 1.88% | 🔼 +0.16% |
| 9 | 14 | R | 1.56% | 🔼 +0.19% |
| 10 | 18 | Rust | 1.45% | 🔼 +0.31% |
| 11 | 10 | Delphi/Object Pascal | 1.37% | 🔽 -0.46% |
| 12 | 17 | Scratch | 1.27% | 🔼 +0.12% |
| 13 | 15 | PHP | 1.11% | 🔽 -0.16% |
| 14 | 8 | Go | 1.07% | 🔽 -1.04% |
| 15 | 11 | Fortran | 0.99% | 🔽 -0.77% |
| 16 | 26 | Ruby | 0.98% | 🔼 +0.23% |
| 17 | 25 | Swift | 0.96% | 🔼 +0.19% |
| 18 | 9 | Perl | 0.94% | 🔽 -1.13% |
| 19 | 22 | COBOL | 0.87% | 🔼 +0.02% |
| 20 | 20 | Assembly language | 0.86% | 🔽 -0.16% |
📉 News of the month: MATLAB drops out of the top 20 after 10 years
If you have ever worked in engineering, physics, or applied mathematics, you have probably heard of MATLAB. It is a numerical computing tool heavily used in universities and research laboratories worldwide. For over 10 years, it was continuously present in the TIOBE top 20.
August 2026 marks the end of this period.
MATLAB disappears from the top 20 — and TIOBE editors believe this is not a temporary decline, but the beginning of a permanent downturn. Why?
Two main reasons:
- Paid license. In a world where Python, R, Julia, and dozens of other languages are completely free, MATLAB requires an expensive commercial license. For students, independent researchers, and startups, this is an increasingly hard barrier to justify.
- Technical stagnation. While Python, C++, Rust, and others constantly introduce new features and modern paradigms, MATLAB has evolved much more slowly. Used today, it can feel like a tool from another era.
Interesting: the only other language in the top 20 that still requires a paid license is Delphi. A coincidence that says a lot about the industry's direction.
⚡ Rust climbs to 10th place — confirmation of a trend
Last month Rust reached an all-time high at 12th place. In August 2026 it climbs even higher — 10th place, with a rating of 1.45% (+0.31%).
This is a clear confirmation that the rebound from June was not a fluctuation. Rust continues to gain real ground among programmers working with critical systems, cloud infrastructure, and embedded software. Entering the top 10 is an important symbolic moment: Rust is no longer a niche language for enthusiasts — it is becoming mainstream.
🐍 Python — leader, but with the biggest drop in the top 20
Python remains in first place with 18.53%, but the drop of -7.61% compared to August 2025 is the largest in the entire ranking. It is also the biggest annual decline recorded by Python in the history of the TIOBE index.
Context matters: Python is not disappearing and is not in danger. The decline reflects the normalization of an extraordinary wave of interest generated by the AI boom of 2023-2024. The market has stabilized — Python has gained so much ground in recent years that now it is simply consolidating, without spectacular growth.
📉 Go — third consecutive year of decline
Go falls to 14th place, down from 8th in August 2025 — a loss of 6 positions and a decrease of -1.04%. This is already the third year in which Go steadily loses ground in the ranking.
The story of Go is one of the most instructive in the software industry: a language backed by Google, with simple syntax and excellent performance — yet it has not managed to build a sufficiently enthusiastic long-term community. Paradoxically, simplicity can also be a limitation: Go does not offer enough expressive power for advanced programmers, who migrate to Rust or TypeScript.
💎 Ruby returns — a summer surprise
Ruby jumps from 26th to 16th place, with a growth of +0.23%. It is one of the biggest surprises of the month.
Ruby is the language famous for the Rails framework — used to quickly build web applications. It was extraordinarily popular in the 2010s but later lost ground to Python, JavaScript, and Go. The comeback in August 2026 raises a question: is it just a summer fluctuation or the start of a real comeback? It remains to be seen.
🦕 COBOL in the top 20 — yes, you read that right
COBOL — a language created in 1959 — appears in 19th place in August 2026. If this seems surprising, consider that banking, government, and insurance systems worldwide run on billions of lines of COBOL code written 40-50 years ago. No one rewrites them because it would be too costly and risky. And programmers who know COBOL are fewer and fewer — and increasingly well paid.
🌟 To watch: OCaml and Zig
TIOBE mentions two languages that are consistently growing outside the top 20 and could become new entries in the near future: OCaml, used in finance and formal systems, and Zig, a modern systems programming language gaining popularity as an alternative to C and Rust.
🔭 What does all this mean for you?
If you are a programmer: Rust in the top 10 is a signal that it is worth investing time in it if you work with high-performance systems. Python remains the safe choice for almost anything. C# continues to be solid for the enterprise ecosystem, even though it slightly declined in August.
If you are a manager or entrepreneur: MATLAB dropping out of the top 20 is a signal that paid-license tools are losing ground to open-source ecosystems. If your organization depends on MATLAB, it is worth evaluating a gradual migration to Python or R.
If you are curious: a language from 1959 (COBOL) is in the top 20, and one from 1972 (C) is in 2nd place. Longevity in software is not measured in years — it is measured in real utility.
