Top 8 Backend Languages That Will Make Wave in 2022

By Mahipalsinh Rana

With technological advancement, we’ve seen websites and mobile applications becoming much more user-friendly and innovative. What we see from the outside is the result of the immense efforts put in behind its programming. As you know, the development takes place in the front and in the back. The former is called ‘front-end development’ while the latter is referred to as ‘backend development.’

No matter how cool the front-end looks, it is the backend where the magic happens. Both types of development involve different approaches, developers and programming languages. Thanks to continuous innovation, the trends are always changing as far as programming technologies are concerned. 

In this blog post, we’ll go through the best eight backend programming languages that you must watch out for in 2022. Let’s understand what backend development means before we go into that.

What is Backend Development?

Backend development is equivalent to the kitchen of a restaurant. When you go to a restaurant, you feel the beautiful ambiance and eat (hopefully) tasty food. All of this can happen because a chef and their staff are preparing dishes in the kitchen. 

Like a restaurant’s kitchen staff, back-end developers write codes to ensure that the end-users get the data or services they requested without a glitch and on time. Backend developers take care of server-side web application functions such as writing APIs, creating libraries, maintaining databases, and working with system components instead of frontend development. 

Simply put, backend developers prepare backend coding structures that act as a link between database and application. That’s why backend development is a branch on its own and requires a special skill-set.

Now that you’ve understood what backend development is, let’s get to why you’re here: the best backend programming languages in 2022. Let’s get started!

1. JavaScript

Launched around 26 years ago, JavaScript has been one of the most reliable backend programming languages. Commonly denoted as ‘JS,’ it is a language used for both server-side and front-end tasks. You must note that ‘JavaScript’ is not the same as ‘Java’; they are both completely different languages.

“JavaScript becomes more and more popular every year. There is no way to build a modern web project that would not use JS extensively,” says Vlad Mishkin, Founder of WebScraping.AI.

JavaScript Features:

• Lightweight Scripting
• Dynamic Typing
• Async Processing
• Object-Oriented programming support 
• Client-Side Validation
• Large community support

Find more statistics at Statista

As you can see in the above graph, JS is the most preferred programming language. NodeJS, Express, and MeteorJS are the most used JS frameworks, with NodeJS being the most notable. The popularity of the NodeJS framework has played a key role in the proliferation of JS.

2. Python

Thanks to its compatibility with technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Data Science and Internet of Things (IoT), Python has been a buzzing language among the developers’ community. That’s why you would always find companies posting ads of Python developers for hire.

This has opened new doors of opportunities, and that’s why we see many python development companies coming up. It’s no surprise that giants like Google, Facebook, IBM, Spotify and many more rely on Python.

Python Features and Advantages:

• Easy to learn
• Huge collection of libraries & frameworks
• Compatibility with AI, ML, IoT and Data Science
• Better code readability
• Easier integration with other languages 
• GUI Programming support 
• Portability & versatility

Additional Tip: Python being an easy language to learn, you’d find even college kids calling themselves ‘python developers.’ That’s why you must be vigilant about hiring the right python developers. 

3. PHP

Although it was launched later than other programming languages, PHP feels like a veteran. The reason is that for years, it has been the most preferred language in server-side applications.

PHP is entrenched in HTML, and custom PHP development is preferred for session tracking, designing eCommerce sites, administering databases and dynamic content. It is an interpreted language, and therefore it doesn’t require a compiler. You can run PHP on almost every major operating system like Windows, Linux, macOS, Unix, etc. 

PHP Features and Advantages:

• Easy to learn
• Cross-platform compatibility
• OOPs features
• Support for various standard databases like MySQL, SQLite, etc. 
• Huge community support 
• Huge collection of libraries and frameworks
• Flexible and Platform Compatibility

4. Java

Even if you’re not familiar with the world of programming, the chances are that you’d have heard of Java. It has been a leading programming language not for years but decades. Although we’ve seen other technologies emerging recently, Java is still the 5th most popular programming language. Java is almost never going to go out of fashion, and that’s why we see a constant rise in demand for offshore Java developers.

Java is an object-oriented programming language, and Java development services are often tasked with developing enterprise-scale web applications, android applications, desktop applications, scientific applications, etc. The biggest advantage of using Java is that its code can run on any platform that supports Java. 

Java Features & Advantages:

• Platform-independent 
• Follows the OOP concepts 
• Rich open-source libraries 
• Automatic memory allocation 
• Portability
• Object-Oriented Language 
• Security
• Multi-Threaded

5. Ruby

Introduced by Yukihiro Matsumoto in 1995, Ruby is an open-source backend programming language. It is a general-purpose, interpreted programming language that beginner backend developers prefer as it is easier to learn than other languages. It supports various programming paradigms such as procedural, functional, and object-oriented programming. 

Often known because of its framework ‘Ruby on Rails, Ruby offers speedy development as its main advantage. It is a rich language with 60000+ libraries.

Ruby Features and Advantages:

• Easy to learn
• 60000+ libraries
• Faster development
• Dynamic typing and Duck typing 
• Automatic garbage collection 
• Robust community support
• Large standard library
• Custom dispatch behavior 
• Flexibility & Scalability 
• Centralized package management through RubyGems

6. C#

C# is a backend programming language primarily introduced by Microsoft for the .Net framework. However, C# Developer is also employed in other areas such as Windows applications, CLI applications, server-side applications and game development. C# is known to run codes speedily. Companies like Intellectsoft, Capgemini, etc., are also using C# for their businesses.

C# Features and Advantages:

• Faster compilation, 
• Interoperability, 
• Scalable & updateable, 
• Component-oriented & structured language, 
• Huge libraries
• Faster & Efficient development
  

7. Go

Although it might not be as popular to non-developers, Go has been ranked as one of the most loved programming languages in the world. Developed at Google, Go allows developers to efficiently build scalable and secure web applications. Its syntax is quite similar to the C language.

Go Features and Advantages:

• Excellent support for multithreading 
• Garbage collection feature for automatic memory management. 
• Easy to learn 
• Readable code
• Compiled language 
• Package management
• Powerful standard library 
• Concurrency support
• High-performance

8. Kotlin

Kotlin is quite a popular name when it comes to android app development. After all, it is officially declared as the preferred language for Android app development. Kotlin is a general-purpose programming language that supports object-oriented and functional programming features. A major advantage Kotlin offers is its complete interoperability with Java, and it supports all Java libraries. 

Kotlin Features and Advantages:

• Easy to learn
• Android app development
• Support for web and desktop application development
• Popular frameworks such as Javalin, KTor, and Vertex 

Final Thoughts

Backend development plays a crucial role in web and mobile applications. That’s why choosing the right programming language is of paramount importance. When you’re looking to opt for the right technology, you should assess your requirements rather than study the trends or see the availability of skilled developers. For example, before deciding to hire a Python development company, you should be clear why you’re going to go with Python.

Once you’re sure of your requirements and the platform you’re going to use, the next crucial step is to hire the right development company as they’re the ones who will help you get the full benefit of the technology. There has never been a better time to get yourself the technological upgrade you deserve.

About the Author

Mahipalsinh Rana is the CTO of Inexture Solutions, a python app development company. He loves to write on python, JAVA, laravel, AngularJS, ReactJs technologies, Startups, Entrepreneurship, and mobile applications.