C# has been named «Programming Language of the Year 2025» by TIOBE. The award is not given for «likeability,» but for the largest annual increase in popularity in the index itself.
C# has been named «Programming Language of the Year 2025» by TIOBE. The award is not given for «likeability,» but for the largest annual increase in popularity in the index itself.
In the January 2026 edition of the ranking, according to InfoWorld, C# has a 7,39% share and ranks 5th. The language has gained 2.94 percentage points over the year, the largest increase of any language on the list.
C# receives the distinction for the second time in three years, having previously won in 2023. In the top four, Python remained the leader, C rose to 2nd place, Java held on to 3rd place with 8,71%, and C++ became 4th with 8,67%. That is, C and C++ swapped places over the year.
TIOBE CEO Paul Jansen explains C#'s leap forward by saying that the language is an early adopter of new approaches among mainstream languages and has undergone two transitions: from Windows-only to cross-platform and from closed development to open source.
Top 10 TIOBE Index for January 2026:
Separately, Jansen predicted that TypeScript could finally enter the top 20 in 2026 (currently in 32nd place). The argument is that front-end is increasingly written in TypeScript due to typing, while the source code is still compiled in JavaScript. At the end of the year, TIOBE also noted the return of R to the top 10 and the sharp growth of Perl, while Go and Ruby, according to the authors, lost positions.
The TIOBE index is built on language mentions on major websites and in search, as well as an estimate of the number of engineers, courses, and third-party tool providers for each language.
Previously, dev.ua wrote about how the Ada programming language, which is over 40 years old, continues to stay in the top ten most popular languages according to Tiobe, leaving behind modern trending developments such as Rust, Kotlin, and Julia.
