This year, 2,565 Julia users and developers participated in the second annual Julia User and Developer Survey - up from 1,844 participants last year. This year, the survey was administered in 4 languages: English, Spanish, Chinese and German.
The survey was presented during JuliaCon, and highlights are included below. The slides are available for download.
Survey respondents come from 102 countries and regions and speak 64 different languages
20% from the United States, 7% from Germany, 6% from India, 4% from France, and the remainder from 98 other countries and regions
91% are fluent in English, 14% are fluent in German, 13% are fluent in French, 11% are fluent in Chinese, 11% are fluent in Spanish, and more than 50% speak another language
More than 70% are under age 45 and more than two-thirds have less than 15 years of work experience
60% are academics and 43% are professionals (survey respondents can be both academics and professionals)
22% of professionals who have used Julia for more than 6 months use Julia in production for a business critical task and 22% use Julia for development as part of a team. 34% use Julia either in production for a business critical task or for development as part of a team.
81% of respondents say the Julia community is ‘very’ (55% - up from 47% last year) or ‘somewhat’ (26%) helpful and collaborative.
New Julia users still use Python a lot (61% use Python ‘a great deal’) while users with more Julia experience use Python much less (43% use Python ‘a great deal’).
Among Julia users and developers, the next most frequently used languages after Julia are Python, and Bash/Shell/PowerShell
If not for Julia, Julia users would be using C++, MATLAB, R, C, Fortran, Bash/Shell/PowerShell and Mathematica
Most Julia users started using Julia in the last 2-3 years
Nearly half of Julia users and developers use Julia for at least half their work
Julia users and developers most appreciate Julia’s speed and performance, ease of use, open source, MIT license and the community of Julia developers.
From 2019 to 2020, there was an increase in the percentage of respondents looking for reduced compile times and time to first plot, and a decrease in the share of respondents who say that Julia doesn’t have all the packages they need, or that those packages aren’t mature or well-maintained enough.
Technical Features |
Non-Technical Features |
|
|
Like Most |
|
|
|
Like Least |
|
|
Julia users and developers say they started using Julia because:
Julia seems like the language of the future
Faster
Like learning new languages
Preferable syntax
Heard about Julia from friends or colleagues