MATLAB programming language sinking in popularity

MATLAB, a programming and numeric computation environment for engineers and scientists is sinking in popularity, according to the latest edition of the Tiobe index of programming language popularity. One important reason for the decline may be MATLAB’s licensing model.

“In a world where most programming languages are freely available, having to pay for a MATLAB license is becoming an increasingly significant disadvantage,” Jansen said. Another reason for MATLAB’s decline is that the language has not evolved as much as other mainstream programming languages.

What Happened

“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,” Jansen said. The Tiobe Programming Community index is an indicator of the.

• In the Tiobe index for August 2026, published August 8, MATLAB is ranked 25th, having fallen out of the top 20 for the first time in more than 10 years.

• The Pypl Popularity of Language Index is an alternative measure of language popularity based on how often languages are searched on Google.

• Popular websites including Google, Amazon, Wikipedia, Bing, and more than 20 others are used to calculate the ratings.

Key Details

Ratings are based on the number of skilled engineers world-wide, courses, and third-party vendors.

What Reports Say

Coverage of the story so far points to:

• Continued reporting by InfoWorld as more details emerge