With hundreds of programming languages available, it’s difficult to choose the right one.
Whether you are new to software development or an entrepreneur trying to find a company providing a web development service, you need to understand the difference between the key languages that can be used in web development. Also, you can address professionals and companies like MLSDev that follow the latest tendencies in web development. Such companies can advise you on the most suitable tech stack and efficient programming languages based on specific project needs and requirements.
Let’s review some of the most popular web development languages that will lead the game in 2021.
Python
Python has been leading the game among the most popular development languages for the past few years. This language is easy to learn and is most widely used to create AI and machine learning based web applications.
Python is an open-source language that allows developers to develop new solutions by using less code quickly. Web applications built with Python provide high performance and are easy to scale.
A lot of world-famous companies are using Python, including Facebook, Dropbox, Netflix, Microsoft, and many others.
If you have your eyes peeled for Python, remember that it’s not mobile-native and, on some occasions, can provide lower performance because of its nature of an interpreted programming language.
JavaScript
JavaScript was named to be the most popular programming language among developers. The language holds the title for over eight years in a row.
In the past year, almost 70% of respondents have worked with the language. About 95% of all web projects are using JavaScript or some of its libraries. For example, the SafeTrading platform, which provides Bitcoin price prediction 2025, is based on Angular.js, a famous Javascript framework.
JavaScript can be used to create responsive and interactive websites. Thanks to a number of different libraries, you can use it for both front-end and back-end development purposes. Such companies as Amazon, YouTube, Facebook, and Pinterest are actively utilizing JavaScript in their web projects.
Java
When we talk about the most widely used programming languages, Java is leading the game. At the same time, it’s one of the most mature ones. It’s been on the market for over 20 years now and doesn’t show any signs of slowing down.
The main advantage of Java is its ubiquity and the ‘Write once, run anywhere’ fundamental. This makes Java a highly stable and platform independence language. Still, the language uses memory resources heavily and can provide slower performance.
Today, the majority of Fortune 500 companies are building the back-end of their applications using Java. You can find eBay, LinkedIn, AliExpress, and other companies among the worshippers of this language.
PHP
PHP is the backend programming language that is used as a server scripting language. It means that PHP is used for parts of websites that handle the interconnections between servers and data.
The language was founded in 1995, making it one of the most mature on this list. PHP has a lot of web frameworks, and many of them are free to use. The support for modules and libraries turned PHP into the primary language for content management systems development.
Today, Flickr, Facebook, Tumblr, and other companies are actively using PHP for back-end development purposes.
Ruby
Even though Ruby on Rails is not a language but rather a web framework, it should be mentioned in the list of the best languages for web development. RoR is used to build applications that run on the web server, which makes it a back-end or server-side programming language.
The framework has a bumpy learning curve and can consume significant resources. Among the advantages, we can name a great number of libraries and tools, huge community, and time efficiency.
Airbnb, Hulu, Basecamp, Github, Zendesk all use Ruby on Rails for their projects.
Go
Go is one of the newest ones on this list. It was created by Google engineers in 2007 and has been actively developed since. Go, also known as Golang, has a number of advantages such as structural typing, garbage collection, memory safety, and CSP-style concurrency. These features allow creating highly performing web solutions that don’t overuse the resources.
A lot of companies are actively utilizing the Go language, including Google, Facebook, Dropbox, Twitter, IBM, and even Apple.
C
C is the oldest language that is used today. The history of this programming language started in the 1970s and, over the years, C has served as the basis for many solutions.
The family of C-like languages is full of famous names. The original language has either influenced their development with its paradigms, syntax, and constructs or served as the origin for new languages. The list of C-based languages includes C#, Objective-C, Java.
The language is still actively used by companies all over the world, including Google and YouTube.
C is a low-level programming language and is used to develop specialized high-performance web applications. The Linux operating system is also based on C.
Swift
Even though Swift is often associated with Apple and its devices, this programming language can be used for server-side web development. Over six years after Swift was originally introduced in 2021, it’s not recognized as the fastest-growing new programming language in computer science history.
The language offers type-safety, ease of programming, and compiled performance. When used both for client-side and server-side programming, Swift speeds up the development process significantly.
Kotlin
Kotlin is a programming language widely used for Android development. In fact, it has already started to drive out Java from the waters since it is fully interoperable with Java.
As for web development, Kotlin can be used for server-side building. It’s compatible with all Java libraries and frameworks, making it easier to migrate an already existing project from Java to Kotlin.
Kotlin offers a lot of advantages such as ease of maintenance, development efficiency, compatibility with Java code, and the same high speed.
To Sum Things Up
As you can see, there are programming languages that can be used in web development. Before making a choice in favor of any of these languages, you need to decide on the project type you want to create, analyze available libraries and frameworks, study all the pros and cons of each option, and only after you have all the data on hands, make the decision regarding languages.
