2024 Stack Overflow Survey results

Well, it's that time of year again and the Stack Overflow Developer Survey results have dropped and there are many trends that have continued from the previous year and gotten stronger. In particular, the popularity and growth of Postgres has taken the top spot among databases.

As someone who works for a Postgres company, this comes as no surprise. Postgres is a great database for both developers and enterprises alike. It's feature rich, stable, yet continually evolving to respond to the needs of developers. Most post's I've seen about it pretty much stop there, but I wanted to dig a little deeper to see what else the survey said, and apply the "Postgres filter" to the other results to see if it sheds any light as to why Postgres is so popular.

Most popular languages

First I wanted to see what developers were using in terms of languages and if Postgres is the most popular database, then it shouldn't come as a surprise that SQL is one of the top languages as well. Given that the other top languages around SQL are JS and HTML/CSS, it would seem that the majority of Postgres users (that responded to this survey) are building web-based applications. And (hopefully) that implies they are relying on the database to do the heavy lifting.

Also, nice to see Fortran still hanging in there in towards the bottom-middle of the pack. And I had never heard of Nim, but now that I have I'm fairly intrigued. But I digress...

Where do developers turn to learn?

So Postgres is the most popular database, and SQL is the 2nd most popular language for developers, but where do developers turn when they want to learn more about how to use Postgres?

As you can see, and what should come as no surprise, "other online resources" is the top option for developers. However, that is a fairly broad category, let's dig into that a bit more.

Interestingly enough, technical documentation, beats out Stack Overflow for the top online resource for learning (and this is on a Stack Overflow survey). If you've ever reviewed the Postgres documentation you'll agree that the Postgres community creates some really great documentation. But in addition to that, there is a very active community on Stack Overflow where other Postgres enthusiasts of all types are actively helping others overcome their hurdles. But right behind documentation and Stack Overflow are written tutorials and blogs.

This is where I'll make a brief, shameless plug for my current employer, Crunchy Data. Crunchy Data, along with others, produce a lot of great technical content for developers to use as reference material. For example, Crunchy Data has the Postgres playground as well as the Crunchy blog.

Easy to see why Postgres wins

After just a brief dive into the rest of the survey results, it's easy to see why Postgres comes out on top. Wide availability of Postgres options, great documentation, and a thriving community all contribute to Postgreses rise in popularity. Momentum has been building for a while now, and I only see it getting stronger.

What is your experience? Do you see Postgres growing in popularity in your line of work? What are some of the things you like best about Postgres? What are some of the area's it falls short for you?