---
title: "Technology 2026"
url: https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2026/technology
year: 2026
chapter: "technology"
licence: "ODbL 1.0 (https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1-0/)"
---

# Technology 2026

What's your favorite tech? It wouldn’t be a Stack Overflow Developer Survey if we didn’t include our technology leaderboard!

## Highlights

### What’s new, what’s old, and something for everyone in technologies surveyed this year

The technology leaderboards have been a constant feature in our Developer Surveys from the beginning. That’s the core of the software developer’s toolkit. What’s changed are the categories of tech on this list: cloud providers, coding agents, LLMs, and security ops.  Many of the top technologies on some of these lists have been there for years. Some lists show clear leaders in the space. But there's still plenty of room for alternative technologies to gain ground- each of these lists includes a long tail of tools in the single digits for usage (and we had to cut the lists off somewhere).

### Languages

For the most used programming languages, JavaScript is at the top of the list for the 12th year in a row

Asked as: Which programming, scripting, and markup languages have you done extensive development work in over the past year, which do you want to work with over the next year, and which have you used AI tools or AI agents to work with? Select all that apply in each row. (`Languages`, scale, optional, v2026.1)

All Respondents · n = 14,099

|  | Respondents | Percent |
| --- | ---: | ---: |
| JavaScript | 8,742 | 62.0% |
| SQL | 8,237 | 58.4% |
| HTML/CSS | 8,212 | 58.2% |
| Python | 8,184 | 58.0% |
| Bash/Shell (all shells) | 7,231 | 51.3% |
| TypeScript | 6,171 | 43.8% |
| Java | 3,885 | 27.6% |
| C# | 3,826 | 27.1% |
| PowerShell | 3,472 | 24.6% |
| C++ | 3,425 | 24.3% |

### The core stack: Technologies that stand the test of time

For the most used programming languages, JavaScript is at the top of the list for the 12th year in a row

### Databases

Postgres continues reign as the most used database, used by a majority of respondents.

Asked as: Which database environments have you done extensive development work in over the past year? Which do you want to work in over the next year? If you worked with the database and want to continue to do so, please check both boxes in that row. (`Databases`, scale, optional, v2026.1)

All Respondents · n = 12,061

|  | Respondents | Percent |
| --- | ---: | ---: |
| PostgreSQL | 6,984 | 57.9% |
| SQLite | 5,083 | 42.1% |
| MySQL | 4,235 | 35.1% |
| Redis | 3,414 | 28.3% |
| Microsoft SQL Server | 3,270 | 27.1% |
| MariaDB | 2,446 | 20.3% |
| MongoDB | 2,297 | 19.0% |
| Elasticsearch | 1,784 | 14.8% |
| Oracle | 1,135 | 9.4% |
| Dynamodb | 1,116 | 9.3% |

Postgres continues to rule in the database space. In an interview on [Stack Overflow’s podcast Shireesh Thota](https://stackoverflow.blog/2026/02/17/data-is-the-new-oil/) (Corporate VP of Azure Databases at Microsoft) said "I tell everyone that Postgres is the Linux of databases... It's one of the best open source projects out there where the community really rallies. They care deeply."  Is it also the AI gateway drug?  That’s how Brian O'Grady (Head of Field Research at Qdrant) put it when he summarized in a [separate interview](https://stackoverflow.blog/2026/05/05/what-un-exactly-do-you-mean-by-semantic-search/) with us the ease of starting with its vector capabilities: "I've called it almost like a gateway drug to vector search. As soon as you use pgvector, you're in."

> “I tell everyone that Postgres is the Linux of databases... It's one of the best open source projects out there where the community really rallies. They care deeply.”
>
> — Shireesh Thota, Corporate VP of Azure Databases at Microsoft [source](https://stackoverflow.blog/2026/02/17/data-is-the-new-oil/)

### Builders are still building in the age of AI

Popular predictions of an AI-driven "SaaSpocalypse" turn out to be greatly exaggerated. Developers are building at high volumes, but their focus remains on internal utilities and glue code rather than replacing commercial software. 77% of developers build small scripts and automations, while 63% create team-level internal tools.  54% build customer-facing applications—a reminder that a vast portion of engineers work inside traditional enterprise sectors like retail, finance, and manufacturing. Vendor replacement sits at the bottom: Only 19% of respondents build in-house software to replace paid vendors. 

But when you shift to look at what people build with AI, SaaS vendors might get nervous: 54% of those building with AI are replacing vendors. The good news is that this is limited to the AI builder subgroup, builders are more likely to be using AI in general for all projects. Vendor replacement got a lot of press this year, but it’s far from an AI breakout story—it's actually the workload where AI assistance sees the lowest ceiling for adoption.

### BuildTool

Small scripts are most common for builders to work on, 19% say they’re building tools to replace paid vendors.

Asked as: Have you used or been involved with building in-house software in the past year? Are you planning to do so in the next year? Select all work functions from the list below that apply. (`BuildTool`, multi select, optional, v2026.1)

All Respondents · n = 13,338

|  | Respondents | Percent |
| --- | ---: | ---: |
| Small scripts/automations | 10,304 | 77.3% |
| Team-level internal tools | 8,398 | 63.0% |
| Customer-facing products | 7,254 | 54.4% |
| Cross-team/platform tools | 6,130 | 46.0% |
| Replacing paid vendors | 2,482 | 18.6% |

When cross-referencing these builds with AI tool usage, a subtle trend emerges: AI adoption steadily drops as system complexity and operational risk increase. When you buy tools, you offload security compliance, SLAs, and continuous maintenance. Replacing them with internally-built tools transfers technical debt back onto internal teams, right where AI errors create the most pain. Developers are happy to let AI generate low-risk automation scripts, but when it comes to business-critical SaaS, most teams still prefer paying a vendor over managing unmaintainable, AI-generated technical debt.

### BuildToolAI

While only 19% say they’re building tools to replace paid vendors, of that cohort more than half are doing so with the help of AI.

Asked as: Which of the following, if any, has your team built with AI assistance in the past 12 months? (`BuildToolAI`, multi select, optional, v2026.1)

All Respondents · n = 10,338

|  | Respondents | Percent |
| --- | ---: | ---: |
| Small scripts/automations | 7,640 | 74.2% |
| Team-level internal tools | 5,588 | 66.5% |
| Customer-facing products | 4,754 | 65.5% |
| Cross-team/platform tools | 3,831 | 62.5% |
| Replacing paid vendors | 1,349 | 54.4% |

### Frontier models’ next evolution

While OpenAI and Anthropic sit neck-and-neck at the top of general LLM usage (74% and 75% adoption, respectively), practitioner sentiment reveals a rift between usage and the desire to keep using it. Anthropic holds a clear lead in forward-looking interest, with 49% of developers wanting  to work with Claude over the next year, compared to 32% for OpenAI. Spend tracking data from Ramp mirrors this shift, showing Anthropic capturing market share rapidly as engineering teams transition from simple chat interfaces to structured, programmatic agent architectures.

### LLM

The two companies focused on frontier models are the top two in LLM usage: Anthropic at 75% and OpenAI at 74%.

Asked as: Which LLM model vendors for AI tools have you used for work in the past year? Which would you like to use next year? Select all that apply. (`LLM`, scale, optional, v2026.1)

All Respondents · n = 11,895

|  | Respondents | Percent |
| --- | ---: | ---: |
| Anthropic | 8,871 | 74.6% |
| OpenAI | 8,834 | 74.3% |
| Google AI | 6,483 | 54.5% |
| Microsoft | 3,142 | 26.4% |
| DeepSeek | 2,253 | 18.9% |
| Alibaba Qwen | 1,203 | 10.1% |
| Mistral AI | 1,162 | 9.8% |
| xAI | 906 | 7.6% |
| Meta AI | 754 | 6.3% |
| Moonshot AI | 479 | 4.0% |
| Other | 427 | 3.6% |
| Zhipu AI | 263 | 2.2% |
| Snowflake | 234 | 2.0% |
| Databricks (DBRX) | 194 | 1.6% |
| Black Forest Labs | 120 | 1.0% |
| Cohere | 112 | 0.9% |
| Stability AI | 102 | 0.9% |
| Voyage AI (MongoDB) | 92 | 0.8% |
| Cascade | 82 | 0.7% |
| 01.AI | 56 | 0.5% |
| Luel | 41 | 0.3% |
| Guide Labs | 39 | 0.3% |
| Reka | 39 | 0.3% |
| Minimax | 13 | 0.1% |
| GLM | 4 | 0.0% |

Disruption and security remain areas for improvement. Few respondents reported working with security technology, suggesting AI security ops is still a relatively isolated field—and possibly a good target for anyone looking to add future-forward tools to their toolkit. Even setting aside dedicated security practitioners, 23% of users said their team lost valuable time to security or privacy issues stemming from AI.

### TechDropDown

For all the talk of security work shifting left, only 23% of respondents have used security tools in the past year.

Asked as: In the last 12 months, has your role at work, school, or in personal projects intersected with any of the following types of settings involving technology? We are going to ask you about to ask you about tools you used within each setting next. Select all that apply. (`TechDropDown`, multi select, optional, v2026.1)

All Respondents · n = 16,241

|  | Respondents | Percent |
| --- | ---: | ---: |
| I used a programming, scripting, or markup language for any reason | 13,697 | 84.3% |
| I used a development environment (IDE) to write code or interact with agent-assisted developer tools | 12,423 | 76.5% |
| I used a database for storage, querying, deployment | 11,910 | 73.3% |
| I used an LLM (large language model) | 11,655 | 71.8% |
| I built, maintained or learned about web technologies | 10,176 | 62.7% |
| I used a knowledge management platform (such as a wiki) | 10,074 | 62.0% |
| I used a cloud platform or any tools related to cloud technologies | 9,659 | 59.5% |
| I used a community platform or online public forum to search, comment, post to, or read from for technology-related content | 9,062 | 55.8% |
| I used an enterprise search platform (a secure way to search for disparate internal content) | 3,987 | 24.6% |
| I used security software for permissions and compliance operations | 3,755 | 23.1% |
| None of these | 364 | 2.2% |
| Other | 197 | 1.2% |

### Disruption

Security and privacy issues caused 24% of teams valuable time in the last year

Asked as: What kinds of AI mistakes have cost you or your team the most time in the past year? Select all that apply. (`Disruption`, multi select, optional, v2026.1)

All Respondents · n = 13,648

|  | Respondents | Percent |
| --- | ---: | ---: |
| Security/privacy issue | 3,205 | 23.5% |

Every figure in this chapter: https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2026/technology/data.md