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This year marks the tenth edition of the State of Developer Ecosystem report. What started in 2017 as a survey about languages and tools has grown into a comprehensive study of how developers work, what they use, and how the industry is changing.
The 2026 edition is based on responses from 28,945 developers across 198 countries and regions. Here’s what stood out.
AI agents are doing a significant share of the work
The use of AI is now standard practice, not a differentiator. More than half of employed developers use AI agents in over 60% of their work tasks. Despite the high rate of adoption, experimentation hasn’t slowed. Only 23% don’t plan to try any new AI tools in the next year.
How developers work with agents varies with experience. Senior developers go beyond prompts and give agents guidelines, specs, and ways to verify their work. They’re also harder to impress. 60% of developers with 1–2 years of experience say AI-generated solutions are better than their own, compared with 47% of those with 16 or more years of experience.
Token counts don’t tell the whole ROI story
Token usage is the most common way to measure AI’s impact. 51% of tech managers say their organizations track it, but only 30% count it among the most insightful metrics. Net time gain exhibits an inverse dynamic: 39% find it insightful, but only 28% track it.
Satisfaction with AI’s ROI is tied to the company’s size. More than half of tech managers at small organizations are satisfied with the return on their AI spending, compared with 34% at large ones. 40% of managers at organizations that don’t measure ROI say they’re satisfied anyway.
Developers would do it all over again
The job market is tough. Just 18% of developers say conditions in their area are favorable, though Japan is a remarkable outlier, with 43% of developers there reporting favorable conditions. Despite the gloomy outlook, three out of four developers would choose the same career if they could start over. This position was most common among architects, team leads, and DevOps and infrastructure engineers.
A decade of languages
Ten years of data make the long-term trends easy to see. For the first time, Python has overtaken JavaScript as the most widely used language, at 65%. Meanwhile, TypeScript adoption has more than tripled since 2017.
Our Language Promise Index, now in its third year, combines five-year growth, adoption intent, and user loyalty to show how strongly each language is positioned for the year ahead. TypeScript tops the 2026 index, followed by Rust and Python. Rust also leads in the category of highest-paid language skills, alongside Go, and they’re the two languages developers most want to adopt next.
A few more numbers
- In database usage, PostgreSQL pulled ahead, gaining nine percentage points to reach 59%, while MySQL held at 54%.
- 47% of developers program for fun as a hobby.
- The pet debate continues: 39% of developers prefer dogs, while 36% prefer cats.
State of Developer Ecosystem 2026 methodology
The survey ran from May to July 2026. After data cleaning, the report is based on 28,945 developers from 198 countries and regions. We improve our methodology every year, and a few things changed this time around:
- To filter out fraudulent and dishonest responses, we used 91 criteria this year, almost double last year’s number.
- The survey had 535 questions. Respondents only saw the sections relevant to them, and questions were randomized to reduce the load.
- We advertised the survey with unbranded creatives. This reduced the bias toward JetBrains users and made the data more representative, but it also means some results may differ from previous years.
- We still corrected for remaining JetBrains bias by reducing the share of responses from JetBrains users by 10%.
Responses were weighted by region, employment status, and programming language use, and the survey was available in nine languages. You can find the full methodology on the report page.
Wrapping up
10 years in, the Developer Ecosystem Survey results depict a profession where AI agents are part of everyday work, organizations are still working out how to measure the payoff, and developers would still choose the same career path despite a tough job market.
As always, the anonymized raw data is free to download on the report page. You can also explore the numbers yourself with the Developer Ecosystem Data Playground.
Join the conversation
What surprised you most in this year’s findings? Share your thoughts on X or other social media, mentioning @jetbrains and using the hashtag #DevEcosystem26.
Want to contribute to next year’s Developer Ecosystem Survey? Join our JetBrains Tech Insights Lab. As a member, you’ll be invited to take part in the next Developer Ecosystem and other surveys, as well as interviews and UX studies that help improve JetBrains products and provide insights for the developer community. You can also enter prize draws and earn rewards.
See you next year for the 2027 edition!