Swift (iOS/macOS) Tops Stack Overflow's Ranking of Most Loved Languages

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Swift (iOS/macOS) — the most loved programming language according to Stack Overflow 2024

The annual Stack Overflow 2024 developer survey brought a sensation: the Swift programming language, created by Apple for development on iOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS, took first place in the "most loved" languages category. With a result of over 70% positive feedback from developers, Swift surpassed veterans like Rust, Python, and TypeScript. This is an important signal for the entire mobile and desktop developer community.

Why did Swift become the leader?

Swift is not just a language for iOS and macOS. In recent years, Apple has invested enormous resources in its development. Here are the key success factors:

Safety and performance. Swift eliminates entire classes of errors typical for Objective-C. Optional types (Optionals) and strong typing make code reliable.
Modern syntax. Swift is concise and expressive. Developers appreciate the ability to write less code with greater readability.
SwiftUI and Combine. With the advent of SwiftUI (a declarative framework for UI) and Combine (reactive programming), development for iOS/macOS has become faster and more enjoyable.
Open source. Since 2015, Swift has been an open-source project, which attracted a community beyond the Apple ecosystem.
Cross-platform capability. Although Swift is associated with Apple, it is actively used on servers (Vapor, Kitura) and even on Linux.

What do the survey numbers say?

The Stack Overflow 2024 survey collected responses from over 65,000 developers worldwide. In the "most loved" languages category, Swift scored 70.1%. For comparison:

Rust — 69.2%
Python — 68.5%
TypeScript — 67.1%
Kotlin — 66.7%

Notably, Swift also entered the top 10 languages that developers plan to learn in the coming year. This indicates high interest in the Apple ecosystem even among those who have never written for iOS or macOS.

Impact on the iOS/macOS development market

The growing popularity of Swift means that employers are increasingly looking for specialists proficient in this language rather than the outdated Objective-C. According to job portals, the number of offers for Swift developers has grown by 34% over the past two years. Demand is especially high for:

iOS developers with SwiftUI experience
macOS developers for creating native applications
Full-stack Swift developers (including server-side with Vapor)

What does this mean for Python developers?

Although Python remains the king of data science and backend, Swift's success shows that the market is multilingual. Many Python developers are already learning Swift to create mobile applications or macOS utilities. And vice versa: Swift developers are increasingly using Python for prototyping and data analysis. Knowing two languages is a powerful competitive advantage.

For those who want to try Swift, Apple offers a free course on Swift Playgrounds (available on iPad and Mac). And on PythonLib you will always find materials on how to combine Python and Swift in real projects.

Source: Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2024.