Is JavaScript Dying? The Truth About JavaScript Today
I look at State of JS 2024, Stack Overflow data, and GitHub Octoverse to explain why JavaScript isn't dying — but it is changing in ways worth understanding.
If you follow tech discourse for more than a week, someone will tell you JavaScript is dying. Python overtook it on GitHub. TypeScript is taking over. AI is going to make the whole thing irrelevant. The argument surfaces every six months, dressed up with fresh data.
The data is real. The conclusion is wrong — or at least incomplete. JavaScript isn’t dying. But it IS changing in ways that matter if you’re building on it today, and the people declaring its death are usually misreading what the numbers actually say.
I’ve been through the State of JS 2024, the Stack Overflow 2024 Developer Survey, and the GitHub Octoverse 2024 report. Let me show you what they actually say.
On this page
- The headlines developers keep sharing
- What Python overtaking JavaScript on GitHub actually means
- TypeScript isn’t replacing JavaScript — it’s becoming it
- JavaScript moved to the server, and it stayed there
- What actually is changing
- JavaScript is maturing, not dying
The headlines developers keep sharing
The Stack Overflow 2024 Developer Survey polled over 65,000 developers and found JavaScript is the most-used programming language for the twelfth year running — with the only exceptions being 2013 and 2014, when SQL held the top spot. 62.3% of all respondents work in it. Among professional developers specifically, that number rises to 64.6%.
npm, the package registry built around JavaScript and TypeScript, recorded a 15% year-over-year increase in package consumption in 2024 according to the GitHub Octoverse report. The top 50 packages all saw net positive growth. That’s not the behavior of a dying ecosystem — it’s the behavior of one that’s still expanding.
Node.js leads the web technology rankings at 40.8% usage in the same Stack Overflow survey, ahead of React at 39.5% and every other framework or runtime on the list.
If you’re looking for signs of death, the numbers aren’t cooperating.
What Python overtaking JavaScript on GitHub actually means
The headline that sparked most of 2024’s “JavaScript is dying” takes came from GitHub Octoverse: Python became the most-used language on GitHub, overtaking JavaScript after what GitHub described as a “10-year run” at the top.
That’s real, and it matters. But there’s a detail in the same report that changes the interpretation considerably.
GitHub ranks languages based on overall activity — commits, issues, pull requests, comments, discussions, reviewed pull requests. It’s a broad measure of community engagement. When you look only at code pushes, JavaScript still holds the top spot.
What’s actually happening is that the definition of “developer on GitHub” is expanding. Data scientists, machine learning researchers, academics, and students joined the platform in large numbers in 2024, and they predominantly use Python. GitHub reports a 92% spike in Jupyter Notebook usage last year. These are new communities joining, not JavaScript developers switching languages.
The same Octoverse report also notes that TypeScript overtook Java to enter the top three languages on GitHub. TypeScript is a superset of JavaScript — it compiles down to JavaScript, shares the same npm ecosystem, and runs on the same V8 engine. If you combine JavaScript and TypeScript, which is defensible given they share the same runtime and registry, the picture looks more like a platform growing in two directions at once than a language being displaced.
GitHub’s own summary says it directly: JavaScript still maintains a massive developer base, and the increase in npm consumption proves consumption is growing, not shrinking.
TypeScript isn’t replacing JavaScript — it’s becoming it
The State of JS 2024 survey found that 67% of respondents write more TypeScript than JavaScript, and the single largest group writes only TypeScript now.
That’s a significant shift from even five years ago. And it’s the most important thing actually happening to the JavaScript ecosystem today.
But TypeScript compiles to JavaScript. It runs on the same V8 engine, uses the same npm packages, and targets the same Node.js, Bun, and Deno runtimes. A developer writing TypeScript is still building JavaScript software — the type annotations disappear at runtime. The ecosystem didn’t get replaced; it grew a type layer on top.
The community broadly agrees this is the right direction. When State of JS 2024 asked what features are currently missing from JavaScript, static typing ranked first with 5,403 mentions. TC39 has an active proposal to add native type annotations to JavaScript itself — and respondents overwhelmingly prefer syntax that looks like TypeScript.
If you want to understand what modern JavaScript development actually looks like today, TypeScript is a good place to start.
Check this before moving on
- TypeScript compiles to JavaScript — it’s a superset, not a replacement language
- TypeScript and JavaScript share the same runtime (V8), same package registry (npm), and the same frameworks
- “JavaScript developer” in 2026 almost always means someone writing TypeScript
JavaScript moved to the server, and it stayed there
One part of the “JavaScript is dying” narrative I find genuinely odd is the assumption that it’s still primarily a browser technology. It hasn’t been for a while.
Node.js peaked in Stack Overflow survey usage in 2020 but still leads the web technology rankings today. Bun and Deno — both JavaScript and TypeScript runtimes — are actively developed and used in production. Every major meta-framework (Next.js, SvelteKit, Nuxt, Astro) runs JavaScript on the server as a first-class target, not an afterthought.
The State of JS 2024 survey shows that 7,345 respondents use JavaScript for backend development, alongside the 11,268 using it for frontend. That ratio is closer than most people assume.
Rendering patterns are shifting too. Server-side rendering is used by 6,559 respondents, static site generation by 5,072, and multi-page applications by 4,399. Single-page applications still lead at 10,027, but the trend toward server rendering is visible. The important detail: all of these patterns are implemented in JavaScript and TypeScript. The shift isn’t away from JavaScript — it’s a rebalancing within it.
Understanding how JavaScript actually executes matters more now that it’s running on both ends of the stack.
What actually is changing
Some of the concern about JavaScript’s health isn’t completely baseless. These things genuinely are different from a few years ago.
React satisfaction is declining. In 2016, 68% of State of JS respondents had positive opinions about React. In 2024, that number dropped to 35%. React is still used by 81.1% of survey respondents — it’s the most-used front-end framework by a significant margin — but the community’s enthusiasm is cooling. Alternatives like Svelte, SvelteKit, Vue, and Astro score much higher on satisfaction and are gaining real adoption.
Build tool complexity remains a pain point. In State of JS 2024, build tools ranked 4th on the list of JavaScript pain points, and managing dependencies ranked 3rd. The toolchain is genuinely complex, and developers feel that weight. This is a real problem, not a perception one.
The ecosystem is consolidating. Vite now sits at the top of the State of JS satisfaction rankings with 72.3% positive sentiment and 78.1% usage — remarkable for a build tool that didn’t exist until 2020. Vitest, Playwright, and pnpm are in similar positions. That consolidation makes development less chaotic, but it does mean a lot of older tooling is being left behind.
| Signal | What it actually means |
|---|---|
| Python overtook JavaScript on GitHub | New developer communities joined; JS still leads code pushes |
| 67% write more TypeScript than JavaScript | The ecosystem added a type layer, not a replacement |
| npm package consumption up 15% year-over-year | Consumption is growing, not contracting |
| React satisfaction dropped from 68% to 35% | One dominant framework is being challenged, not JavaScript itself |
| Vite reached 78% usage with 72% positive sentiment | The tooling layer is finally stabilizing |
JavaScript is maturing, not dying
Here’s what I actually think after going through all of this: the “JavaScript is dying” narrative is a misreading of what maturation looks like.
Languages don’t grow by adding more developers at the same rate forever. At some point they become infrastructure — embedded everywhere, depended on by professionals, and less likely to generate explosive growth charts. That’s where JavaScript is now. npm growing 15% year-over-year while feeling stable is a feature, not a warning sign.
The developer writing jQuery plugins in 2012 and the one writing TypeScript applications with server-side rendering today are using very different toolchains. But they’re both building JavaScript software. The runtime stayed the same while the practice around it evolved.
If you’re deciding whether to invest in learning JavaScript or build something on top of it: the ecosystem is large, well-funded, actively maintained, and the only language that runs natively in every browser without a transpilation step. That hasn’t changed.
What has changed is that “JavaScript developer” now almost always means TypeScript developer, the server is a first-class target, and the community’s taste in frameworks has gotten considerably more critical. That sounds like a maturing ecosystem to me — not a dying one. And if you’re building anything full-stack today, JavaScript is still the most practical thread running through all of it.
An ecosystem, not an island: the JavaScript platform today is a network of runtimes, tools, and typed layers — all still connected at the centre.