LangPop Monthly Report: June 2026
The big change this month is under the hood: Wikipedia Pageviews is now a live signal, taking the index from four active sources to six of seven. Rust rises on the new public-interest data it had been missing, C# climbs to #6, and PHP slips to #9. Python holds #1 comfortably. Here is the full picture — with a transparent note on why June scores are not directly comparable to May.
What changed: the Wikipedia signal is live
In May, two of seven sources were dark — Google Trends (whose pytrends access was retired upstream) and Reddit. That left the composite running on four sources (65% of the intended methodology). In June we replaced the retired Trends collector with Wikipedia Pageviews (the official Wikimedia REST API — a free, stable measure of public interest in each language). The index now runs on six of seven sources — 90% by weight. Only Reddit (10%) remains dark.
Because a 15%-weight source came online mid-quarter, the composite scores below are on a different basis than May's — so this report compares rank movement month-over-month, which is robust to the change, rather than raw score deltas, which are not. The full formula is at /methodology.
Full top-20 rankings — week of June 28, 2026
The composite is a weighted average across six currently active sources: GitHub (25%), job postings (20%), Stack Overflow (15%), Wikipedia Pageviews (15%), package registries (10%), and tutorial platforms (5%). Reddit (10%) is inactive — see the data quality note below. The Δ column is the rank change since the end of May. All source scores are normalised 0–100 against the top language in each source.
| Rank | Language | Score | Δ MoM |
|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | Python | 65.3 | — |
| #2 | JavaScript | 47.2 | — |
| #3 | Java | 37.6 | — |
| #4 | C++ | 33.2 | — |
| #5 | TypeScript | 30.8 | ▲1 |
| #6 | C# | 26.5 | ▲3 |
| #7 | Go | 24.2 | ▲1 |
| #8 | Rust | 23.2 | ▲2 |
| #9 | PHP | 16.7 | ▼4 |
| #10 | R | 10.9 | ▼3 |
| #11 | Swift | 10.5 | — |
| #12 | Ruby | 9.5 | ▲1 |
| #13 | Kotlin | 7.9 | ▼1 |
| #14 | Dart | 6.0 | ▲1 |
| #15 | Lua | 5.7 | ▲1 |
| #16 | Scala | 4.3 | ▼2 |
| #17 | Perl | 3.6 | ▲2 |
| #18 | Haskell | 3.2 | — |
| #19 | Elixir | 2.8 | ▼2 |
| #20 | Julia | 2.6 | — |
Δ MoM = rank change vs end of May. Source weights: GitHub 25%, Jobs 20%, Stack Overflow 15%, Wikipedia 15%, Packages 10%, Tutorials 5%; Reddit (10%) inactive.Full methodology →
Notable movers this month
C#: #9 → #6
The clearest climber of the month. C#'s strength is broad rather than spiky: job postings at 45.0 are the fourth-highest of any language, and its Stack Overflow score (30.1) is third only to Python and JavaScript. The Microsoft enterprise stack plus Unity game development keep demand steady, and none of its six active sources is weak — which is exactly what lifts a language in a composite index.
Rust: #10 → #8
Rust is the best illustration of what the new Wikipedia signal adds. Its Wikipedia Pageviews score is 46.1 — second only to Python — reflecting enormous developer curiosity. But its Stack Overflow (0.9) and job (7.4) scores are near-zero, so May's four-source composite undercounted it. With public interest now measured, Rust rises two places. Its adoption was always real; the index just couldn't see it before.
PHP: #5 → #9
PHP's slide is partly a methodology effect and worth naming honestly. Its May #5 leaned on a strong Stack Overflow footprint (26.8 — the legacy WordPress and Laravel codebase still being maintained) in a composite that lacked a public-interest source. With Wikipedia added, PHP's modest interest score (19.6) and thin GitHub activity (17.9) pull it back to a position more in line with its current momentum. It still powers a huge share of the web.
R: #7 → #10
R is the month's most volatile entry — it slid three places since May but jumped four spots in the final week alone (#14 → #10). Its profile is lopsided: high Wikipedia interest (34.2) and tutorial demand (28.8) from the data-science learner base, but very low GitHub activity (2.7) because R lives in notebooks and RStudio, not public repositories. Expect week-to-week swings until the historical record smooths them out.
Top 5 by source: where each language wins and loses
The composite can obscure where a language is actually strong. Here is where each of the top five lands on each source, on a 0–100 normalised scale — now including the new Wikipedia column:
| Language | GitHub | Jobs | SO | Wiki | Composite |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Python | 68.4 | 80.3 | 41.2 | 100.0 | 65.3 |
| JavaScript | 54.2 | 75.5 | 40.5 | 50.0 | 47.2 |
| Java | 43.6 | 66.1 | 35.5 | 35.1 | 37.6 |
| C++ | 46.9 | 37.4 | 15.4 | 45.1 | 33.2 |
| TypeScript | 67.2 | 45.6 | 4.4 | 18.4 | 30.8 |
TypeScript's GitHub dominance: At 67.2, TypeScript has the highest GitHub activity of any language — narrowly ahead of Python (68.4 is Python's, so they are effectively tied at the top). Yet its Stack Overflow score is just 4.4, because most TypeScript questions are still tagged as JavaScript. That tagging artefact, plus a middling Wikipedia score (18.4), is why it sits at #5 despite elite developer adoption.
Python's complete profile: Python is the only language that is strong everywhere — top or near-top on GitHub (68.4), jobs (80.3), Wikipedia (100), and tutorials (100). A composite index rewards exactly this kind of across-the-board strength, which is why Python's #1 lead is the most durable in the data.
Where Wikipedia reshuffles the tail: The new signal does the most work outside the top 10. Perl (11.3), Haskell (10.1), and Elixir (9.8) all post Wikipedia scores far above their job or Stack Overflow numbers — public curiosity that the employment- and Q&A-based sources never captured. It is a reminder that "interest" and "paid work" are different signals, and a good index needs both.
Data quality note: what the index is (and isn't) measuring
Six of seven sources are now live — up from four in May
This is the most complete the index has been. GitHub, job postings, Stack Overflow, Wikipedia Pageviews, package registries, and tutorial platforms are all reporting — 90% of the intended methodology by weight. The one remaining gap is Reddit (10% weight), which is dark pending API credentials. Community momentum — which Reddit captures and which often leads the job market by a year or more — is therefore still underweighted for fast-moving community languages.
Two honesty notes. First, because Wikipedia came online this quarter, June composite scores are not directly comparable to May's — the basis changed, which is why we lead with rank movement. Second, some packages coverage is partial (languages without a single dominant registry, like Java on Maven, read as 0), so the packages column understates a few ecosystems. Both are documented on the methodology page.
What to watch next month
Reddit coming online
When the last source activates, the composite will shift once more — community-driven languages (Rust, Elixir, Go) are the most likely to gain. As with the Wikipedia change, we will compare ranks, not raw scores, across the transition.
Does Rust hold #8?
Rust jumped on the new Wikipedia signal. The question is whether that is a one-time re-rating or the start of a climb — watch whether its job score (7.4) starts catching up to its interest score (46.1). If hiring follows curiosity, Rust moves into the top 6.
PHP and R stabilisation
PHP (#9) and R (#10) both moved several places this month, partly on the methodology change and partly on real volatility. A monthly report is the right lens for these — watch whether they settle or keep sliding once the Wikipedia basis is a few months old.
C# vs the top 5
C# climbed to #6 on breadth. It sits just behind TypeScript (#5) and its job score already beats several languages above it. Whether it cracks the top 5 depends on GitHub activity (21.5 today — its weakest source) recovering.
About the LangPop monthly report
The index runs weekly; this monthly report covers the most recent complete data cycle and highlights notable movements, source-level breakdowns, and methodology notes. All figures are derived from the LangPop composite — a weighted average across seven independent sources.
Full methodology and source weights are at langpop.com/methodology; raw data is at langpop.com/data; and you can see live week-over-week crossovers at langpop.com/crossovers.
Get next month’s report first
One email every Tuesday with the week’s movers, plus the monthly report when it lands. No spam.
Join developers who care about data. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.