Is PHP Losing Popularity?

The TIOBE Index for January 2019 shows that PHP has dropped out of the top ten most popular programming languages, having spent years as one of the most popular languages.

The TIOBE Index for January 2019 shows that PHP has dropped out of the top ten most popular programming languages, having spent years as one of the most popular languages.

While this is not a new development, it is interesting to see how the popularity of PHP has been decreasing over time. The TIOBE index measures how many times each language is searched on Google, with a higher score indicating greater popularity.

The top ten languages are: Java (19%), C (12%), Python (6%), C++ (5%), JavaScript (5%), SQL/CSS/HTML/Perl/Assembly/Ruby (4%). The remaining 8% are made up mostly of niche languages like Go or Clojure as well as some esoteric older systems such as APL and FORTRAN.

According to David Carrasco, TIOBE’s CEO and founder, the guide aims to “provide an indicator of the popularity of programming languages”.

According to David Carrasco, TIOBE’s CEO and founder, the guide aims to “provide an indicator of the popularity of programming languages”.

TIOBE index is a measure of the popularity of programming languages. It is calculated using Google search results for queries about a language. The TIOBE index is not a measure of usage or quality; it merely shows how many web pages are indexed by popular search engines that contain references to a specific language.

TechRepublic published a story on December 18 reporting that PHP had “dropped out of the top 10 list” on TIOBE - although given that it’s not available on the main website, we aren’t certain this is where they got the news from.

The TechRepublic story was published on December 18 and reported that PHP had “dropped out of the top 10 list” on TIOBE - although given that it’s not available on the main website, we aren't certain this is where they got their news from.

A version of this story appeared on TechRepublic in 2018, though it appears it was updated between this and its publication today.

This story was updated on December 18, 2018 by [TechRepublic writer]. The original version was published on TechRepublic in 2018.

The TIOBE index has long been a useful way to gauge which programming language is currently the most popular, but it does have its limitations. For one thing, it doesn't measure actual usage of a language; instead, it measures how often developers search for information about those languages online. It also only includes languages that have at least 3 million lines of code available online—an arbitrary threshold that excludes many less-popular languages from its results.

“Top 10” refers to TIOBE’s popularity index for programming languages. This is calculated using search engine results for queries about a language.

One of the most popular and commonly used programming languages in the world is PHP. However, according to a recent TIOBE Index, PHP is losing popularity due to its slow speed.

This is not surprising because programmers are always looking for faster languages that have new features; this helps them build applications quickly and efficiently with reduced costs.

To answer your question: yes, PHP will lose its popularity eventually because it’s too slow compared to other programming languages that were introduced after it (Ruby on Rails, Python).

This doesn't necessarily mean that developers are using fewer tools developed in PHP or that fewer new tools are being created. It could just mean fewer people are Googling “PHP” right now.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that developers are using fewer tools developed in PHP or that fewer new tools are being created. It could just mean fewer people are Googling “PHP” right now.

If you want to make sure your favorite language stays popular, you can help by writing some tutorials and articles on it!

Does a drop in Google search traffic translate directly to a drop in PHP usage?

An obvious question is whether the drop in Google search traffic translates directly to a drop in PHP usage. It's possible that more developers are using PHP, but fewer of them are Googling for help. It's also possible that developers are using PHP less, but are Googling for help more.

A few other factors may also be at play:

• Google Trends only includes data from searches on google.com, not from other sites such as Bing and DuckDuckGo. The majority of web searches happen on Google, so this could explain why PHP has dropped off those charts while remaining stable elsewhere (e.g., Stack Overflow).

• The number of active users on Stack Overflow may have increased over time (see chart above), leading to higher levels of activity even though overall interest has dropped off among the general population - though this isn't reflected by Google Trends' data because it only shows numbers based on site visits versus pageviews or clicks per visit/pageview ratio like we see here at [Stack Overflow](https://www.*