JavaScript powers most interactive websites, making it an essential language for anyone working in web development. It’s also a popular language used to develop mobile apps and games. Because it’s so ubiquitous, it also has a large support community.

Programmers generally learn JavaScript after they’ve learned HTML and CSS, the other two primary structures for building websites. HTML, or HyperText Markup Language, defines the content of a website, including text and images, and enables links to other websites. CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets, specifies a website’s style guide, defining elements like background colors, font style, and text size.

JavaScript makes webpages and sites dynamic and interactive, allowing them to respond to users’ selections and provide specific functions or calculations right on a webpage. If you have ever used a website that allowed you to select various options to automatically update a list or a map, it was probably driven by JavaScript. The same is true if you have ever seen a website with a small interactive box, for instance, showing gas prices near where you live or allowing you to get a glimpse at the weather in several locations.

Among all the languages ranked here, some are better for building websites and mobile apps, while others are better for gaming and financial applications. It’s important to note that specific programming languages are usually developed to solve a particular problem, which means no one language fits all coding needs—they all offer different possibilities for value and innovation.  

Data work by Wade Zhou. Story editing by Jeff Inglis. Copy editing by Tim Bruns.

This story originally appeared on Revelo and was produced and distributed in partnership with Stacker Studio.