TIOBE Index August 2026: MATLAB Exits the Top 20 for the First Time in Over a Decade as Rust Holds No. 10
TIOBE's August 2026 index kept Rust at No. 10 and pushed MATLAB to No. 25, its first finish outside the top 20 in more than 10 years.
Overview
TIOBE’s August 2026 programming-language popularity index left its top 10 in the same order as July, but MATLAB fell to No. 25, marking the first time in more than 10 years that the language has finished outside the top 20, according to TIOBE and InfoWorld. Rust, which entered the top 10 for the first time in July, held its No. 10 spot through August, according to TechRepublic.
What We Know
- Python remains No. 1 at 18.53%, with C next at No. 2 on 11.10%; Python is “well ahead of every other language despite a 7.61-point decline in its rating from August 2025,” according to TechRepublic.
- C’s rating is up 2.07 points year over year, making it “the only language among the current top five to post a year-over-year increase,” per TechRepublic.
- C++ holds No. 3 at 8.62%, followed by Java at No. 4 on 8.25% — a gap of just 0.37 percentage points between the two, according to TechRepublic.
- The rest of the top 10 is C# (No. 5, 4.09%), JavaScript (No. 6, 2.63%), Visual Basic (No. 7, 2.18%), SQL (No. 8, 1.88%), R (No. 9, 1.56%), and Rust (No. 10, 1.45%), according to InfoWorld.
- Rust has climbed from No. 18 a year ago, “the largest jump of the three” among SQL, R, and Rust, which have all risen in rank over the past year, gaining eight places since August 2025, according to TechRepublic. Its hold on No. 10 is not secure: Delphi/Object Pascal sits at No. 11 on 1.37%, just 0.08 percentage points behind.
- MATLAB fell to No. 25 at 0.71%, according to InfoWorld. TIOBE CEO Paul Jansen wrote that “Is this just a temporary dip, or is it the beginning of a more permanent decline? Personally, I believe MATLAB’s days are numbered,” according to TIOBE.
- Jansen attributed the decline to MATLAB’s cost: “In a world where most programming languages are freely available, having to pay for a MATLAB license is becoming an increasingly significant disadvantage,” he wrote, noting that “Delphi is currently the only other programming language in the TIOBE top 20 that still requires a paid license,” according to TIOBE.
- Jansen also pointed to stagnation: “While languages such as Python, C++, Rust, and even newer languages continue to introduce modern language features and programming paradigms, MATLAB can increasingly feel like a language from another era,” according to TIOBE.
- For MATLAB to return to the top 20, it would need to “recover at least five places from its ranking this month,” per TechRepublic.
- TIOBE’s own commentary flagged two languages further down the list as ones to watch: “both OCaml and Zig have shown consistent growth over the past few months and may become new top-20 entries in the future,” according to TIOBE.
What We Don’t Know
TIOBE has not said whether it expects MATLAB’s slide to continue into September, and Jansen’s framing — “is this just a temporary dip” — leaves open the possibility of a rebound. Neither TIOBE nor the outlets covering the index gave a specific timeline for when OCaml or Zig might reach the top 20, if at all.
Analysis
The TIOBE Index measures search-engine and vendor-related signals rather than direct usage telemetry, so month-to-month shifts can reflect search interest as much as actual adoption. Even so, August’s numbers extend a pattern the index has tracked for months: Rust consolidating its position after breaking into the top 10 in July, and older, commercially licensed languages like MATLAB losing ground to free alternatives that iterate faster. Jansen’s own comparison — pointing to Python, C++, and Rust as the languages MATLAB is failing to keep pace with — frames the shift less as a single-month anomaly and more as a licensing-model and release-cadence story playing out over years.