Stack Overflow Growth and Usage Statistics (2024)

Stack Overflow Interesting Key Facts

• A Forrester Consulting study shows 191% ROI with Stack Overflow For Teams.
• 81% of the global developer population visits Stack Overflow per week.
• Jeff Atwood, one of the founders of Stack Overflow, quit Linkedin in 2006 and never came back because he felt uncomfortable with recruiters “swirling like sharks”.
• Stack Overflow was named by the readers of Coding Horror, Jeff Atwood’s popular programming blog.
• The Atwood’s Law is a popular term among developers that is being used to identify Jeff Atwood’s quote that he said in 2007, “Any application that can be written in JavaScript, will eventually be written in JavaScript.”
• In 2013, Atwood built a mechanical keyboard called CODE which was specifically designed for programmers.
• A Stack Overflow update in May 2019 contained a bug which allowed an attacker the privileges to access the production version of the site.
• Stack Overflow was acquired by Prosus for $1.8 billion.
• In 2020, Stack Overflow won the Webby People’s Voice Award for Community in the category Web even though the site has been heavily criticized for gender bias and for being unfriendly.

Sources: Stack Overflow, Twitter, Coding Horror 1, Coding Horror 2, WSJ, The Verge,

Stack Overflow: Company Overview (About)

Stack was founded in 2008 in New York, USA. There are about 700 employees at stack, and the company’s revenue is of $70 million.

At a glance:

Sources: Linkedin

How much is Stack Overflow worth?

Stack Overflow’s valuation from its latest recent funding in 2020 was not disclosed to the public. However, in 2015, the company was valued at $459 million according to Pitch Book.

Source: Forbes

Stack Overflow Revenue

According to Joel Spolsky, in 2019, the overall revenue of Stack Overflow was $70 million. This overall revenue can be broken down into $44 million for the Talent Product, $16 million for the advertising revenue, and $10 million for their SaaS product.

Whether we break it down or not, it’s clear that Stack is a profitable business.

Source: JoelOnSoftware

Stack Overflow Investors

As of 2022, there are a total of 18 investors and 6 of them are leading investors. Time Bridge was the latest investor of Stack Overflow.

Source: Crunchbase

Stack Overflow Funding History

Stack Overflow has a total of 6 funding rounds throughout the years. The most recent funding for Stack Overflow was held on December 1, 2020 that raised $85 million.

The total amount of money raised through series of funding was $153 million.

The table below shows us a piece of more detailed set of information on Stack Overflow’s funding history:

Source: Crunchbase, Businesswire

How many questions are being asked in Stack Overflow?

As of November 2022, there are a total of 23 million questions asked in Stack Overflow.

The table below shows us the number of questions being asked in Stack Overflow throughout the years.

You can see how the questions on Stack had a 9.52% growth from 2016 to 2022.

With each new year, Stack’s popularity grows, and more questions are being asked every day.

Source: TalentLyft, Stack Exchange, Stack Overflow

How many questions are being asked in Stack Overflow per minute?

As of November 2022, there are 4 questions asked every minute to Stack Overflow.

Source: Stack Overflow

How many answers are there in Stack Overflow?

As of November 2022, there are a total of 34 million answers in Stack Overflow.

The table below shows us the number of answers in Stack Overflow throughout the years.

There may be a lot of questions on Stack, but people come in handy with even more replies.

The table above shows you how there was a 9.68% increase in the amount of answers that Stack has seen from 2016 to 2022.

It’s just like the questions! They were up by 9.52%, and the answers were up by 9.68% within the same 6 years.

Source: Stack Exchange

How many developers visit Stack Overflow per month?

As of November 2022, Stack Overflow received 100 million monthly visits from developers. The number of developers with the recent number of visits is unclear because one developer may have visited Stack Overflow multiple times in a month.

The table below shows us data from Stack Overflow on how many developers visit Stack Overflow per month throughout the years.

Source: Stack Overflow 1, Stack Overflow 2, Stack Overflow 3, Stack Overflow 4, Stack Overflow 5

How many people visit Stack Overflow per month?

Recent data shows us that 100 million people visited Stack Overflow on a monthly basis.

The table below shows us the number of Stack Overflow monthly visitors throughout the years.

There is a consistent number of visitors between 2018 and 2019, which keeps Stack’s traffic up.

Source: Stack Overflow 1, Stack Overflow 2, Stack Overflow 3, Stack Overflow 4

How many teams and companies are using Stack Overflow?

As of November 2022, there are currently 10,000+ teams around the world that are using Stack Overflow. There are also 1,655 companies from all forms and sizes that are using Stack Overflow for Teams in their tech stack.

Some of these companies are:

• Delivery Hero
• Henge K.K.
• CircleCI
• Alibaba Travels
• Intuit
• Kmong
• Pratilipi
• Barogo
• Accenture

Sources: Stack Overflow 1, Stack Overflow 2

What are the most used tags on questions in Stack Overflow?

Tags in Stack Overflow are essential. Here they are:

The most popular tag is JavaScript, followed by Phyton.

If you’ve had a few days in the coding world, you’ll probably see how this matches the fact that JavaScript and Phyton are two of the most popular scripts.

Source: Stack Overflow

How many registered users of Stack Overflow are there?

As of November 2022, there are more than 100 million visitors on Stack Overflow every month. However, only a few of these visitors are registered users.

There were 14 million registered users in Stack Overflow and 23 million registered users. This means that there is 64.2857% of year over year growth rate from 2021 to 2022.

Source: Stack Exchange, Stack Overflow

What is the gender distribution among Stack Overflow users?

The following table presents the gender distribution among Stack Overflow users.

Source: Similarweb

What is the age distribution among Stack Overflow users?

The following table presents the age distribution among Stack Overflow users.

The most popular age group of Stack users is the 25-34 age group, with almost 38% of the total users. Then, there are the 18-24s, with almost 25% of the total users.

This shows us that the younger audience is more present on Stack Overflow than the older audience.

Source: Similarweb

What is total reputation in Stack Overflow?

Reputation in Stack Overflow is crucial and essential. The amount of reputation that a user has will roughly measure how much trust the communities have on that user.

There is a cap of 200 reputations that can be gained by a user per day but bounty awards and accepted answers are immune to this daily cap.

Total reputation is the amount of reputation that a user has garnered throughout a given period of time: weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly, and all time.

Source: Stack Overflow

How many users are there in each total reputation bracket?

The over 100,000 reputaion group has the most limited amount of users: 1,159 people find themselves in this group.

Source: Stack Exchange

How many users are there in each reputation change bracket?

Reputation can come and go in Stack Overflow. If the quality of the question or an answer is not good enough or does not actually help, other users can down vote it which can affect the user’s reputation.

Let’s have a look on how many users are in each reputation change bracket.

The following data are collected based on the amount of reputation gained or lose at the end of each week. Also, users with less than 200 reputation are not tracked.

Reputation change is a given fact and it happens all the time among Stack users.

Source: Stack Exchange

Who are the top users in Stack Overflow of All Time?

The following table shows us the top users of all time in Stack Overflow based on the number of reputation as of November 2022.

Source: Stack Exchange

Who are the top users in Stack Overflow in 2022?

The following table shows us the top users of all time in Stack Overflow based on the number of reputation as of November 2022.

Jon Skeet is the #1 all-time user, with reputation of 1,370,442 at the moment of writing this article (January 2023, with regular updates).

While Jon Skeet may seem unbeatable, Gordon Linoff is coming right after him, having all time reputation of  1,218,112.

Source: Stack Exchange

How does Stack Overflow make money?

Stack Overflow runs on an aggregator business model. Revenue stream comes from various advertising options, selling software to enterprise customers, and subscription fees on Stack Overflow For Teams feature.

Stack maintains its quality through extensive content moderation, monitoring and properly implementing the upvote mechanisms, and identify confirmation. These provides a proper system wherein Stack Overflow can properly operate in an organized and disciplined manner.

Source: Productmint, Stack Overflow

What are Collectives on Stack Overflow?

Collectives on Stack Overflow are contents grouped around a product, services or product suite of a technology organization. These are formed based on the tags providing a home for particular organizations in Stack Overflow.

Source: Stack Overflow

Collectives and their number of members

There are currently three Collectives in Stack Overflow. These are Google cloud, Twilio and WSO2.

The following table shows us a closer look on how many members are there in each Collective.

You can see that Google Cloud is the largest collective on Stack, with by far more members than any collective group.

Source: Stack Overflow

How many employees work at Stack Overflow?

According to their LinkedIn, Stack Overflow has more than 700 employees.

Source: Linkedin

What are the most popular cloud platforms in Stack Overflow?

Amazon’s AWS is the most popular cloud platform in Stack, with 54.22% of the total users.

Below you can see the rest of the most popular platforms.

You can see really popular names within the tech world in the table above. As expected, they are the big players in Stack’s cloud platforms.

Source: Stack Overflow

What are the most popular languages in Stack Overflow?

The succeeding subsections provide data on the most languages that developers use according to Stack Overflow’s surveys that were conducted throughout the years. These includes programming language, scripting language, and markup languages.

The main participants of these surveys are developers that are currently registered as users in the website. The information was collected throughout the years, from 2017 to 2021.

Java Script dominated the top spot as the most popular language being used by developers who are registered users of Stack Overflow.

Sources: Stack Overflow 1, Stack Overflow 2, Stack Overflow 3, Stack Overflow 4, Stack Overflow 5

Most popular languages in Stack Overflow – 2021

The following table shows the most popular languages according to Stack Overflow’s survey in 2021 with at least 83,000 developers as respondents.

Just as in the present, JavaScript was the most popular language in 2021, with 64.96% of the total users.

Source: Stack Overflow

Most popular languages in Stack Overflow – 2020

The following table shows the most popular languages according to Stack Overflow’s survey in 2020 with at least 57,000 developers as respondents.

Source: Stack Overflow

Most popular languages in Stack Overflow – 2019

The following table shows the most popular languages according to Stack Overflow’s survey in 2019 with at least 87,000 developers as respondents.

Source: Stack Overflow

Most popular languages in Stack Overflow – 2018

The following table shows the most popular languages according to Stack Overflow’s survey in 2018 with at least 78,000 developers as respondents.

Source: Stack Overflow

Most popular languages in Stack Overflow – 2017

The following table shows the most popular languages according to Stack Overflow’s survey in 2021 with at least 36,000 developers as respondents.

Source: Stack Overflow

Most Popular Frameworks, Libraries and Tools by Stack Overflow

The succeeding subsections provide data on the most popular frameworks, libraries and tools according to Stack Overflow’s surveys that were conducted throughout the years. The main participants of these surveys are developers that are currently registered as users in the website.

The information was collected throughout the years, from 2017 to 2021. Frameworks, libraries and tools are in the same section as per Stack Overflow’s survey results.

We can see in the following tables that Git is the most popular tool used by developers as of 2021. Node.js has also been very dominant from 2017 to 2020 as the most popular framework.

Following closely is .NET framework as the second most popular framework that is being used by the developers in Stack Overflow.

Sources: Stack Overflow 1, Stack Overflow 2, Stack Overflow 3, Stack Overflow 4, Stack Overflow 5

What are the most popular frameworks, libraries and tools according to Stack Overflow in 2021?

The following table shows the most popular frameworks, libraries and tools according to Stack Overflow’s survey in 2021 with at least 76,000 developers as respondents.

Source: Stack Overflow

What are the most popular frameworks, libraries and tools according to Stack Overflow in 2020?

The following table shows the most popular frameworks, libraries and tools according to Stack Overflow’s survey in 2020 with at least 40,000 developers as respondents.

Source: Stack Overflow

What are the most popular frameworks, libraries and tools according to Stack Overflow in 2019?

The following table shows the most popular frameworks, libraries and tools according to Stack Overflow’s survey in 2019 with at least 58,000 developers as respondents.

Source: Stack Overflow

What are the most popular frameworks, libraries and tools according to Stack Overflow in 2018?

The following table shows the most popular frameworks, libraries and tools according to Stack Overflow’s survey in 2018 with at least 51,000 developers as respondents.

Source: Stack Overflow

What are the most popular frameworks, libraries and tools according to Stack Overflow in 2017?

The following table shows the most popular frameworks, libraries and tools according to Stack Overflow’s survey in 2017 with at least 20,000 developers as respondents.

Source: Stack Overflow

Most Popular Databases according to Stack

The succeeding subsections provide data on the most data bases according to Stack Overflow’s surveys that were conducted throughout the years.

The main participants of these surveys are developers that are currently registered as users in the website. The information was collected throughout the years, from 2017 to 2021.

As we will see on the following tables, MYSQL is currently the most popular data base being used by developers that are registered in Stack Overflow.

Following in third and second places are PostgreSQL and Microsoft SQL server.

Sources: Stack Overflow 1, Stack Overflow 2, Stack Overflow 3, Stack Overflow 4, Stack Overflow 5

What are the most popular databases according to Stack Overflow in 2020

The following table shows the most popular databases according to Stack Overflow’s survey in 2020 with at least 49,000 developers as respondents.

Source: Stack Overflow

What are the most popular databases according to Stack Overflow in 2019

The following table shows the most popular databases according to Stack Overflow’s survey in 2019 with at least 75,000 developers as respondents.

Source: Stack Overflow

What are the most popular databases according to Stack Overflow in 2018

The following table shows the most popular databases according to Stack Overflow’s survey in 2018 with at least 66,000 developers as respondents.

Source: Stack Overflow

What are the most popular databases according to Stack Overflow in 2017

The following table shows the most popular databases according to Stack Overflow’s survey in 2017 with at least 29,000 developers as respondents.

Source: Stack Overflow

Most Popular Platforms according to Stack Overflow

The succeeding sections provide data on the most popular platforms according to Stack Overflow’s surveys that were conducted throughout the years. The main participants of these surveys are developers that are currently registered as users in the website.

The information was collected throughout the years, from 2017 to 2020. Linux has been the most popular platform for Stack Overflow developers from 2018 to 2020. Following closely in second place is Windows which has been the most popular in 2017 but replaced with linux the year after.

Sources:  Stack Overflow 1, Stack Overflow 2, Stack Overflow 3, Stack Overflow 4, Stack Overflow 5

What are the most popular platforms according to Stack Overflow in 2020?

The following table shows the most popular platforms according to Stack Overflow’s survey in 2020 with at least 29,000 developers as respondents.

Source: Stack Overflow

What are the most popular platforms according to Stack Overflow in 2019?

The following table shows the most popular platforms according to Stack Overflow’s survey in 2019 with at least 80,000 developers as respondents.

Source: Stack Overflow

What are the most popular platforms according to Stack Overflow in 2018?

The following table shows the most popular platforms according to Stack Overflow’s survey in 2018 with at least 66,000 developers as respondents.

Source: Stack Overflow

What are the most popular platforms according to Stack Overflow in 2017?

The following table shows the most popular platforms according to Stack Overflow’s survey in 2017 with at least 29,000 developers as respondents.

Source: Stack Overflow

Languages associated with the highest salaries worldwide

The succeeding sections provide data on the languages associated with the highest salaries across the world according to Stack Overflow’s surveys that were conducted throughout the years.

The languages included on these surveys are programming languages, script languages, and mark up languages. The main participants of these surveys are developers that are currently registered as users in the website.

The information was collected throughout the years, from 2018 to 2021.

Sources: Stack Overflow 1, Stack Overflow 2, Stack Overflow 3, Stack Overflow 4, Stack Overflow 5, Stack Overflow 6

What languages are associated with the highest salaries worldwide? (2021)

The following table shows the languages that are associated with the highest salaries across the world according to Stack Overflow’s survey in 2021 with at least 46,000 developers as respondents.

Source: Stack Overflow

What languages are associated with the highest salaries worldwide? (2020)

The following table shows the languages that are associated with the highest salaries across the world according to Stack Overflow’s survey in 2020 with at least 33,000 developers as respondents.

Source: Stack Overflow

What languages are associated with the highest salaries worldwide? (2019)

The following table shows the languages that are associated with the highest salaries across the world according to Stack Overflow’s survey in 2019 with at least 55,000 developers as respondents.

Source: Stack Overflow

What languages are associated with the highest salaries worldwide? (2018)

The following table shows the languages that are associated with the highest salaries across the world according to Stack Overflow’s survey in 2018 with at least 56,000 developers as respondents.

Source: Stack Overflow

Languages associated with the highest salaries in USA

The succeeding sections provide data on the languages associated with the highest salaries in U.S.A. according to Stack Overflow’s surveys that were conducted throughout the years. The languages included on these surveys are programming languages, script languages, and mark up languages.

The main participants of these surveys are developers that are currently registered as users in the website. These information were collected throughout the years, from 2018 to 2021.

Sources: Stack Overflow 1, Stack Overflow 2, Stack Overflow 3, Stack Overflow 4, Stack Overflow 5, Stack Overflow 6

What languages are associated with the highest salaries according to Stack Overflow in the US (2020)?

The following table shows the languages that are associated with the highest salaries in the United States according to Stack Overflow’s survey in 2020 with at least 7,000 developers as respondents.

Source: Stack Overflow

What languages are associated with the highest salaries according to Stack Overflow in the US (2019)?

The following table shows the languages that are associated with the highest salaries in the United States according to Stack Overflow’s survey in 2019 with at least 14,000 developers as respondents.

Source: Stack Overflow

What languages are associated with the highest salaries according to Stack Overflow in the US (2018)?

The following table shows the languages that are associated with the highest salaries in the United States according to Stack Overflow’s survey in 2018 with at least 13,000 developers as respondents.

ource: Stack Overflow

What languages are associated with the highest salaries according to Stack Overflow in the US (2017)?

The following table shows the languages that are associated with the highest salaries in the United States according to Stack Overflow’s survey in 2017 with at least 3,000 developers as respondents.

Source: Stack Overflow

Stack Overflow Website Traffic Analysis Overview

These are the data collected on Stack Overflow Website Traffic Analysis as of November 2022:

Source: Hypestat

Stack Overflow Website Traffic Sources

Source: HypeStat

Stack Overflow Traffic Source: Desktop vs Mobile

• 88.70% of the users visit the website through desktop devices
• 11.30% of the users visit the website through mobile devices

Source: HypeStat

How much would Stack Overflow make based on the traffic?

Source: HypeStat

How much does Stack Overflow lose due to Adblock?

Source: HypeStat

How many Stack Overflow page views are blocked?

Source: HypeStat

Stack Overflow For Teams Pricing

There are currently 4 pricing plans for Stack Overflow For Teams Pricing. These can be divided into Free, Basic, Business, and Enterprise. These plans are priced per teammate.

The following table shows us a more detailed look.

Souce: Stack Overflow

What are the top countries visiting Stack Overflow?

Source: Similarweb

How much time do people spend on Stack Overflow?

According to Similarweb, the average visit duration of a user on Stack Overflow is:

• 00:07:21

Source: Similarweb