How Seriously Should We Take State of JS and Other Developer Surveys?

By Sylwia Laskowska on Feb 10, 2026. Originally published on DEV.to.
How Seriously Should We Take State of JS and Other Developer Surveys?

There was a time when I treated State of JS results almost like prophecy.

A new edition dropped and I’d read it with excitement, looking for the future of JavaScript hidden somewhere in those charts.

Today I still read it.
But with much less awe and much more distance.

If you haven’t seen the 2025 results yet, you can explore them here:
https://2025.stateofjs.com/en-US/

It’s honestly a fantastic piece of work. Beautifully built, interactive, full of data. Huge respect to the creators — it’s not a small project.

But the real question is:

How seriously should we treat it?

A Very Short Recap of 2025 📊

I won’t do a full summary. Plenty of people already did, and you can just look at the charts.

In short:

Surveys like this are great for sensing the ecosystem.
What’s popular. What’s growing. What annoys developers.

Sometimes tools highly praised in surveys reach real production adoption years later. Vite is a good example.

So yes — these surveys are useful.

But they come with a lot of nuance.

My Younger-Developer Phase 😄

I remember being a junior and wanting to immediately try (or even introduce to production) everything that ranked high in satisfaction.

Luckily, nobody asked for my opinion back then 😉

I also used to feel genuinely sad seeing Angular score poorly in satisfaction.
Because… I liked working with it. My teams liked it. Our projects worked.

Was Angular dying?

Spoiler: many years later, it’s still doing just fine.

And it made me wonder:

If some tools are so loved in surveys, why don’t they dominate job listings?
Why is there constant demand for React and Angular devs, but much less for Vue or Svelte (at least where I live)?

A Little Story About Surveys 🧠

Fun fact: when I was very young, I had a part-time job in a company that conducted surveys.

That’s where I learned how serious research is actually done.

A reliable study needs:
carefully selected demographics, well-phrased neutral questions, controlled variables, clear definitions, sometimes even different question orders to avoid bias.

As you can guess — State of JS (and most dev surveys) don’t meet those strict scientific standards.

And that’s okay. They’re not academic research.

But it’s worth remembering.

Who Actually Answers? 🔥

Most likely:
people who care about tech, follow trends, hang out on DEV, Reddit, Twitter, and enjoy exploring tools.

Also people willing to spend time filling out a long survey.

Who probably doesn’t?
Developers who treat programming as a normal job and close their laptop at 5 PM.

That group might be huge. Possibly the majority.

So we’re mostly hearing from the curious and passionate slice of the community.

Which is interesting — but not the whole picture.

Regional Reality 🌍

Participation is open, which is great, but it also means representation isn’t proportional.

The US is strongly represented.
India has one of the biggest developer populations in the world, yet doesn’t always show up proportionally.

And regions differ.

Vue is strong in parts of Asia.
In Poland and much of Europe, React and Angular still dominate job markets.

So survey trends don’t always match local reality.

What Does “Usage” Even Mean? 🤨

This one always makes me think.

If I heard about a tool once by an accident in an office kitchen, do I have awareness?
If I did a tutorial, does that count as usage?
Or should usage mean delivering a real project?

When someone says they like a tool, is it after comparing many options, or just because it feels nice? Or maybe it's the only tool he/she knows? 🤔

And even in anonymous surveys, some people may hesitate to admit they don’t know something.

Human psychology never disappears from data.

Surveys vs Real Careers 💼

Can surveys help choose what to learn?
Sometimes.

Can they guide tech decisions?
Maybe.

But surveys and job markets are two different worlds.

You can learn the “best” framework and still land in a 10-year-old legacy codebase.
You can study modern React and get class components on day one 😉

Real careers are messy and non-linear.

How to Read Surveys 🧭

What works for me:

Look at trends year to year.
Compare satisfaction and usage.
Watch movement, not winners.
Remember that popular tools get more criticism simply because people use them daily.

And most importantly:
treat surveys as insight, not truth.

Yesterday’s winner can be tomorrow’s loser.

So… Should We Care? 🙂

Yes. But calmly.

State of JS doesn’t tell you what to use.
It shows what developers are curious about right now.

Think of it as a compass, not a GPS.
Direction, not destination.

It reflects the mood of the community more than the future of the industry.

Still useful. Just not absolute.

What do you think?
Do surveys influence your decisions, or do you mostly treat them as interesting reading?