Last week we looked at the top programming languages overall. But web development is its own world with its own hierarchy. The language that tops general-purpose rankings (Python) isn’t the one running most websites. The language running most websites (PHP) barely cracks the general top 15.
So which languages actually power the web? We dug into the data from Stack Overflow, GitHub, W3Techs, and the State of JS survey to find out.
A Note on What Counts
We’re talking about programming languages here, not markup or styling. HTML and CSS are essential to every website, but they describe structure and presentation—they don’t contain logic, loops, or algorithms. Our site has always drawn this distinction: CodeArchaeology covers programming languages, and HTML/CSS fall outside that scope.
We’re also treating JavaScript frameworks (React, Angular, Vue, Next.js) as part of the JavaScript and TypeScript ecosystem rather than separate languages, because that’s what they are. React isn’t a language—it’s a library written in JavaScript. Next.js isn’t a language—it’s a framework built on React. When you write React code, you’re writing JavaScript (or TypeScript).
With that cleared up, here are the languages that actually build the web.
Frontend: The JavaScript Monopoly
On the client side, there’s essentially one programming language: JavaScript. It runs on 98% of all websites. There is no meaningful alternative for browser-based programming.
The real frontend story is about what flavor of JavaScript you write:
JavaScript vs. TypeScript
TypeScript overtook both Python and JavaScript to become the #1 language on GitHub in August 2025. On Stack Overflow, 43.6% of developers use TypeScript compared to 66% for JavaScript—but the gap is closing fast.
The shift is driven by practical concerns. A 2025 academic study found that 94% of LLM-generated compilation errors were type-check failures. As AI-assisted coding becomes standard practice, TypeScript’s type system catches bugs that vanilla JavaScript misses. This matters enormously when you’re accepting code suggestions from Copilot or Claude.
For new web projects in 2026, TypeScript has become the default choice. JavaScript remains dominant in legacy codebases and smaller scripts where the overhead of type definitions isn’t worth it.
The Framework Landscape
While frameworks aren’t separate languages, they shape the developer experience dramatically. Here’s where the ecosystem stands based on the 2025 Stack Overflow survey and State of JS data:
| Framework | Stack Overflow Usage | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Node.js | 48.7% | Server-side JavaScript runtime |
| React | 44.7% | UI component library |
| jQuery | 23.4% | DOM manipulation (legacy) |
| Next.js | 20.8% | React meta-framework (SSR/SSG) |
| Express | 19.9% | Node.js web server framework |
| Angular | 18.2% | Full application framework |
| Vue.js | 17.6% | Progressive UI framework |
React continues to lead at 44.7% usage, but the framework landscape is fragmenting. Svelte has quintupled its usage and has the highest developer satisfaction of any frontend framework. Astro, SvelteKit, and Solid are gaining traction for specific use cases.
The key insight: all of these frameworks are JavaScript/TypeScript. Learning the language well matters more than picking the “right” framework, because frameworks change every few years while the language fundamentals remain.
Backend: Where It Gets Interesting
The backend is where language diversity actually exists. Unlike the frontend’s JavaScript monopoly, server-side development offers genuine choice—and the data tells a surprising story.
The Deployed Web vs. New Development
There’s a massive disconnect between what currently runs on the web and what developers are building new projects with.
What’s deployed today (W3Techs, February 2026):
| Rank | Language | % of Websites |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | PHP | 72.2% |
| 2 | Ruby | 6.6% |
| 3 | JavaScript (Node.js) | 5.6% |
| 4 | Java | 5.4% |
| 5 | Scala | 4.9% |
| 6 | ASP.NET (C#) | 4.5% |
| 7 | Python | 1.2% |
That’s right—PHP powers nearly three-quarters of all websites on the internet. WordPress alone accounts for about 43% of all websites, and WordPress is PHP. Add Drupal, Joomla, Laravel, Magento, and Shopify’s backend, and PHP’s web dominance becomes clear.
But W3Techs measures the deployed web, which is heavily weighted toward older sites that were built years ago and are still running. The picture looks very different when you examine what developers are actively choosing for new projects.
What developers are building with (Stack Overflow 2025, web frameworks):
| Rank | Framework | Usage | Language |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Node.js | 48.7% | JavaScript / TypeScript |
| 2 | ASP.NET Core | 19.7% | C# |
| 3 | FastAPI | 14.8% | Python |
| 4 | Spring Boot | 14.7% | Java |
| 5 | Flask | 14.4% | Python |
| 6 | Laravel | 9.2% | PHP |
| 7 | Django | 8.2% | Python |
| 8 | Ruby on Rails | 5.1% | Ruby |
The gap between “deployed” and “developing” reveals the web’s evolution in real time.
Backend Language Breakdown
Here’s how each major backend language fits into the web development picture:
1. JavaScript / TypeScript (Node.js) — The Full-Stack Play
Node.js remains the most-used backend framework at 48.7% in Stack Overflow. The appeal is obvious: one language for frontend and backend. With TypeScript adding type safety, the JavaScript ecosystem now covers the entire stack.
Express.js (19.9%) is the established Node.js web framework, but newer alternatives like Fastify and Hono are gaining ground for performance-sensitive applications. Next.js (20.8%) blurs the frontend/backend line entirely with server-side rendering and API routes in the same project.
Best for: Full-stack applications, real-time features (WebSockets), startups wanting a single-language stack, API services.
2. Python — The Fastest-Growing Backend Language
Python is the biggest backend story of 2026. FastAPI (14.8%) surpassed Flask (14.4%) for the first time as the most-used Python web framework—a milestone that reflects the shift toward modern async APIs.
Combined, Python web frameworks (FastAPI + Flask + Django) account for 37.4% of framework usage in Stack Overflow, making Python the second most popular backend ecosystem after JavaScript/TypeScript.
Best for: APIs (especially AI/ML-powered services), data-heavy applications, rapid prototyping. FastAPI in particular is becoming the go-to for building AI service backends.
3. PHP — The Silent Majority
PHP powers 72.2% of the deployed web, but only 9.2% of Stack Overflow respondents use Laravel (its leading modern framework). This reflects PHP’s unique position: it’s everywhere because of WordPress and legacy systems, but it’s less common in greenfield development.
That said, modern PHP (8.x) with Laravel is a genuinely productive framework. Companies like Mailchimp, Slack (originally), and Etsy built significant platforms on PHP. The language has evolved substantially from its early days—modern PHP has type declarations, enums, fibers for async, and a mature package ecosystem.
Best for: Content management systems, e-commerce, projects that need WordPress integration, rapid web application development with Laravel.
4. Java — Enterprise Web at Scale
Java with Spring Boot (14.7% in Stack Overflow) is the backbone of enterprise web development, and the numbers undersell its impact. Stack Overflow surveys measure individual developers, but Java dominates in large organizations where a single project might employ dozens of developers—environments that are underrepresented in surveys skewed toward solo developers and startups.
Spring Boot transformed Java web development when it arrived in 2014. Before Spring Boot, configuring a Java web application meant wrestling with XML files, application server deployments, and boilerplate that could fill a textbook. Spring Boot replaced all of that with convention over configuration, embedded servers, and auto-configuration that lets you go from start.spring.io to a running API in minutes. The framework has continued to evolve aggressively—Spring Boot 3.x brought native compilation via GraalVM, dramatically reducing startup times and memory footprint, directly addressing the “Java is slow to start” criticism that pushed some teams toward Go and Node.js.
The Spring ecosystem extends far beyond basic web serving. Spring Security provides enterprise-grade authentication and authorization. Spring Data abstracts database access across relational, NoSQL, and search engines. Spring Cloud builds distributed systems with service discovery, circuit breakers, and configuration management. Spring WebFlux offers reactive programming when you need it. This integrated ecosystem means teams can solve most backend problems without leaving the Spring world—something few other frameworks can claim.
The companies running Java on the web aren’t small. Netflix processes billions of API requests daily through Java services. LinkedIn’s backend is primarily Java. Amazon, Google, and virtually every major bank run critical web infrastructure on Java. Uber, Airbnb, and Square built significant portions of their platforms with Java and Spring. When a company needs a web backend that will scale to millions of users, handle complex business logic, and be maintained by rotating teams of developers over a decade, Java remains the default answer.
Java’s web story also includes the broader JVM ecosystem. Kotlin with Spring Boot is increasingly common—Spring has first-class Kotlin support, and many teams are migrating their Spring services to Kotlin for its concise syntax and null safety while keeping the entire Spring ecosystem. Scala powers web services at Twitter (now X), and Groovy with Grails offers a more dynamic alternative on the JVM.
Best for: Enterprise applications at scale, microservices architectures, financial services and banking, applications with complex business logic, teams that need long-term maintainability, organizations already invested in the JVM ecosystem.
5. C# — The Microsoft Web Stack
C# with ASP.NET Core (19.7%) is the second most-used web framework overall. Microsoft’s investment in .NET cross-platform support has paid off—ASP.NET Core runs on Linux, macOS, and in containers, not just Windows Server.
C# was TIOBE’s Language of the Year for 2025, and its web framework usage reflects that momentum.
Best for: Enterprise applications (especially in Microsoft-oriented shops), high-performance APIs, real-time applications with SignalR, Azure-hosted services.
6. Go — The Cloud-Native Backend
Go doesn’t have a dominant web framework (by design—Go developers prefer the standard library), but it grew 25% year-over-year on GitHub and 16.4% of Stack Overflow respondents use it.
Go powers the infrastructure that runs the web: Docker, Kubernetes, and Terraform are all written in Go. For backend services that need to handle high concurrency with minimal memory overhead, Go’s goroutines and channels provide an elegant solution.
Best for: Microservices, cloud-native applications, high-concurrency APIs, CLI tools, infrastructure software.
7. Ruby — Still Productive, Still Relevant
Ruby on Rails (5.1% in Stack Overflow) has a smaller share than its peak years, but it remains a remarkably productive framework. Shopify—one of the largest e-commerce platforms in the world—runs on Rails. GitHub itself was built with Rails. Basecamp continues to evolve the framework with Hotwire and Turbo for modern server-rendered applications.
Best for: Rapid application development, startups prioritizing speed to market, content-rich applications, e-commerce platforms.
8. Rust — The Performance Edge
Rust is entering the web backend space with frameworks like Actix Web and Axum. At 14.8% usage in Stack Overflow (general, not web-specific), it’s growing fast. For applications where latency and throughput matter—high-frequency trading APIs, real-time gaming backends, CDN edge computing—Rust offers performance that garbage-collected languages can’t match.
Best for: Performance-critical web services, WebAssembly modules, edge computing, applications where memory safety and speed are both essential.
The Full-Stack Combinations
In practice, most web projects use a combination of languages. Here are the most common full-stack patterns in 2026:
TypeScript everywhere: TypeScript (React/Next.js) + TypeScript (Node.js/Express) The most popular combination. One language, one type system, shared code between frontend and backend.
Python + TypeScript: TypeScript (React) + Python (FastAPI) Growing rapidly, especially for AI-powered applications where the backend needs Python’s ML ecosystem but the frontend needs a rich interactive experience.
Java enterprise: TypeScript (Angular or React) + Java (Spring Boot) The enterprise standard and still the most common pattern in Fortune 500 companies. Strong typing on both ends, mature tooling, and an ecosystem that handles everything from authentication to message queues to distributed tracing. Spring Boot’s built-in actuator endpoints, metrics, and health checks make it production-ready out of the box. Many organizations pair this with Kubernetes for orchestration—a natural fit since Spring Boot’s embedded server model and Docker-friendly packaging were designed with containerized deployment in mind.
C# enterprise: TypeScript (React or Angular) + C# (ASP.NET Core) The Microsoft stack. Similar to the Java pattern but with tighter Azure integration.
PHP pragmatic: JavaScript (Vue.js or React) + PHP (Laravel) Common for content-driven sites and e-commerce. Laravel’s Blade templating can reduce the need for a separate frontend framework entirely.
What’s Changing
Three trends are reshaping web development languages in 2026:
1. AI Is Driving TypeScript Adoption
When AI generates your code, type safety catches errors before they reach production. This is why TypeScript surged 66.63% on GitHub. Expect this trend to accelerate as AI-assisted coding becomes the norm.
2. Python Is Eating the Backend
FastAPI overtaking Flask signals a broader shift. As companies build AI-powered features into their web applications, Python backends become a natural choice because the ML models, the API layer, and the data pipeline can all share the same language.
3. The Server Is Coming Back
After a decade of heavy client-side JavaScript (SPAs), the pendulum is swinging back toward server-rendered HTML. Next.js Server Components, Rails Hotwire, Laravel Livewire, and HTMX all reflect a trend toward doing more on the server. This benefits languages like Go, Ruby, PHP, and Elixir that have always been strong at server-side rendering.
Which Should You Learn?
For web development specifically:
- Your first web language: JavaScript / TypeScript. There’s no way around it—you need it for the frontend, and it works on the backend too.
- Adding a backend language: Python (if you lean toward AI/data) or Go (if you lean toward infrastructure/performance).
- Enterprise career: Java with Spring Boot or C# with ASP.NET Core.
- Startup/indie developer: Ruby on Rails or PHP with Laravel for maximum productivity per developer.
- Performance-critical: Rust or Go.
The best news? The web is more polyglot than ever. Whatever language you enjoy writing, there’s a place for it on the web.
Want to try any of these languages? Every language linked in this article has a dedicated page on CodeArchaeology with Hello World tutorials and Docker images to get you running in minutes. Browse our complete collection of 70+ languages.