I think that Go is better than Python. And that's my own opinion. But I was wondering if people are using Go or Python for their production software in the real world. I want to get statistics of production software to compare and understand the real world.
Source of statistics
In a previous post, I used Homebrew as the source of statistics about apps written in each programming language. Homebrew is a package manager for MacOS and Linux distros.
Homebrew provides a json file of the index of all packages and apps in Homebrew Core Formulae.
So I created a simple CLI application written in Go to use that updated JSON file to count the apps using a specific programming language.
Statistics by gobrew
| language | June 2 | July 1 |
|---|---|---|
| Go | 988 | 998 |
| Python | 777 | 783 |
| Cython | 11 | 11 |
According to statistics, Go is used for more production software than Python.
Why Go is used more than Python ?
| comparison | Go | Python / Cython |
|---|---|---|
| compilation speed | very fast | Python: not compiled, Cython: very slow |
| runtime performance | very fast | Python: slow, Cython: good |
| concurrency support | great | bad |
| libraries & frameworks | good enough | huge |
| readability | good | good |
As you can see, Go checks all factors mentioned, but Python is great at things and bad at other things. Programming languages are just tools, so, overall, I personally choose Go every time as the better tool to get the job done. Most software developers choose Go over Python as you can conclude from the statistics above.
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Top comments (3)
I have quite a few micro-services running in Golang. For web services, Golang is a brilliant choice if you want to squeeze performance out of your infrastructure without dropping to C++/C or Rust.
You get that Python-like dev experience with Go, and speed is not too far from Rust/C.
Python is great for machine learning, small maintenance scripts, and web apps in general. You can use caching to get decent enough performance, so there's not always a need for Go in this space.
Use both, they are both awesome and powerful. I am also a fan of PHP.
100% agree! Python is brilliant and very easy to use, but Go is awesome. I only don't like the name :-D
it depends on your necessities.
if you want to develop robust applications use go, but if you want to develop fast, use python