Is SQL Losing Its Edge? Exploring the Future of Structured Query Language

The TIOBE June 2025 programming language index has been released, featuring the headline "Where is SQL going?".

SQL, short for Structured Query Language, is the language used to communicate with databases.

Recently, SQL's popularity has declined, falling to 12th place this month—the lowest position in its history.

Historically, SQL reached its peak in October 2003, ranking sixth. In early 2004, some argued that SQL should not be considered a programming language, leading TIOBE to remove it from the list, resulting in a data gap from 2004 to 2018.

In 2018, developers demonstrated that SQL is Turing‑complete, prompting its reinstatement on the ranking and a return to the top ten thanks to strong support from the database community.

SQL underpins countless everyday interactions: banking transactions, e‑commerce order management, hospital records, flight and ticketing systems, student information, course selection, grade management, and teacher scheduling—all rely on tables that SQL manipulates.

Although SQL will remain the core language of the database domain for many years, the AI wave appears to outpace it.

AI workloads often involve unstructured data, where NoSQL databases excel by handling JSON, XML, and other flexible formats, making them a substantial threat to the more rigid, structured nature of SQL.

NoSQL (Not Only SQL) databases are designed for big data, unstructured or semi‑structured data (e.g., JSON, XML, graph data), high‑concurrency read/write scenarios, and flexible data models with high scalability.

Massive data (Big Data)

Unstructured / semi‑structured data (e.g., JSON, XML, graph data)

High‑concurrency read/write workloads

Flexible data models and high scalability

NoSQL does not follow traditional table structures, relationships, or SQL syntax, and is commonly used in internet services, real‑time recommendation, logging, IoT, and big‑data scenarios.

This month, Python continues its surge, holding a 25.87% share and staying more than 15% ahead of the second‑place C++.

The top‑ten languages for June 2025 are: Python, C++, C, Java, C#, JavaScript, Go, Visual Basic, Delphi/Object Pascal, and Fortran.

Historical ranking trends (1988‑2025)

TIOBE publishes monthly rankings based on the number of skilled engineers, courses, and third‑party vendors, using data from search engines and technical communities such as Google, Baidu, and Wikipedia.

These rankings reflect current trends and can guide learning and career decisions, but each language has its own suitable application scenarios, so the rankings should not be over‑emphasized.

Reference: https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/