Released in 1991 by Guido van Rossum, Python has evolved from a simple scripting language to a feature-packed programming language with extensive community support.
Owing to its easy-to-use syntax and easy learning curve, the usage of Python has grown in the last few years, outstripping Java as the most popular programming language in the 2021 TIOBE Programming Community index.
Even the biggest players in the tech landscape that need no introduction such as Facebook, Reddit and Instagram use Python in their mainstream applications.
Through this post, we’ll shed light on some of the popular apps that use Python. Without further ado, let’s begin with a quick overview of Python:
What is Python?
Python is an interpreted, object-oriented, high-level and general-purpose programming language.
- Interpreted: It means that the interpreter executes the code line by line, making it easier to debug.
- Object-oriented: It means that Python is a programming language based on the concept of “objects”, making programming easy to execute, reuse and maintain.
- High-level: It means that Python is a programming language with strong abstraction from computer instructions, making it easier to use.
- General-purpose: It means that Python can be used to engineer a diverse range of applications and isn’t restricted to solving a specific problem.
The programming language encompasses many third-party modules and extensive support libraries that make it ideal for complex application development.
Even recent studies highlighted that Python was the top five most widely used languages among software developers around the globe in 2021.
Also Read: Top 7 Websites Built with PHP
Top 10 Apps Built with Python
Now that we’ve enlightened you on what Python is and its popularity, it’s time to explore some of the popular apps built with Python.
1. Facebook
The most widely used social media platform Facebook is one of the apps built with Python.
Python is the third most used programming language for production engineering at Facebook, after PHP and C++.
According to a 2016 post by Facebook, Python powers 21% of the codebase and it is behind multiple services including TORconfig for handling network switch setup & imaging, Dapper for scheduling & automating the implementation of maintenance work and among others.
2. Instagram
One of the fastest-growing social media platforms, Instagram is also powered by Python.
“Instagram currently features the world’s largest deployment of the Django web framework, which is written entirely in Python.” – Instagram’s engineering team.
The reason behind choosing Python for Instagram is the language’s simplicity that matches well with their philosophy of “do the simple things first”.
Also Read: Top 7 Apps Built with Node.js
3. Spotify
Spotify, the leading music streaming platform all over the world, makes use of the Python programming language for two main segments: backend services and data analysis.
Spotify’s backend encompasses many interdependent services which are connected by a message protocol over ZeroMQ and around 80% of the backend services are engineered in Python.
Moreover, Spotify has a heavy reliance on analytics to provide recommendations and suggestions for its users. The company makes use of Luigi, which is a Python module, for data interpretation.
There are two driving forces behind why Spotify chose Python: the language’s capability to expedite the development and active community around it that Spotify supports.
4. Netflix
Another app built with Python is Netflix which has become a go-to destination for people around the world to stream movies and TV shows.
“We use Python through the full content lifecycle, from deciding which content to fund all the way to operating the CDN that serves the final video to 148 million members. “- as per the Netflix Technology Blog.
While the engineers at Netflix are given autonomy to pick the language they would like to work in, most of them prefer to write in Python. The reasons behind this inclination towards Python are its standard library, the rich catalog of third-party libraries, simplicity and the active development community.
5. Reddit
Reddit, the leading social news aggregator and forum platform, is one of the apps built with Python. Originally, it was written in Lisp but made a switch to Python in 2015.
There were two reasons behind the switch to Python for Reddit. Firstly, Python comes with a wide array of code libraries. The second reason for Reddit for choosing Python was its high readability.
“The biggest thing that has kept us on Python … well, there are two huge things. One are the libraries. There’s a library for everything. We’ve been learning a lot of these technologies and a lot of these architectures as we go. The other thing that keeps us on Python, and this is the major thing, is how readable and writable it is. ” – According to Huffman, co-founder and CEO of Reddit.
Also Read: Top 15 Popular Apps Built with Kotlin
6. YouTube
Launched in 2005 by three PayPal employees-Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, YouTube is one of the most visited websites in the world.
It uses Python for different purposes all over the website such as view video, administer video, control templates for website, access to canonical data and more. YouTube turned to the Python language due to its speed, enabling the developers at YouTube to develop maintainable features in record-breaking time.
7. Dropbox
Founded in 2008, Dropbox is one of the leading cloud file hosting services.
Today, it hits the milestone of over 700 million registered users. And have you ever wondered how? Well, according to Dropbox’s previous Head of Server Engineering Rajiv Eranki, they used the Python language for everything.
Dropbox turned to Python because of the language’s readability, cross-platform support and ease of learning. If interested, you can learn more about how Python Powers Dropbox.
8. Quora
With more than 300 million users, Quora is a popular question-and-answer platform where users help each other by providing insightful answers to each other’s questions on a wide range of subjects.
From industry experts to reporters, all of them love to share their expertise with each other over the platform.
The founders of Quora, who previously worked at Facebook, turn to the Python language because it’s expressive as well as ensures high development speed.
9. Pinterest
Pinterest is a popular social booking marketing website that enables users to save and share photos of their favorite content. It is one of the famous apps built with Python.
Pinterest’s tech stack includes many programming languages and Python is one of them.
It uses Python and Django to handle a large amount of content.
“We use python + heavily-modified Django at the application layer. Tornado and (very selectively) node.js as web-servers.” – the co-founder of Pinterest.
10. Uber
Uber is one of the most popular ridesharing apps on the planet with 118 million users as of 2021. The tech stack of Uber includes many programming languages including Python, Go, Java and Node.js.
“We started with two main languages: Node.js for the Marketplace team, and Python for everyone else. These first languages still power most services running at Uber today.” – Uber.
Hire Skilled Python Developers from InfoStride
If the aforementioned list of apps built with Python has piqued your interest in hiring Python developers for your next project, InfoStride has an experienced and skilled team of Python developers for hire.
With InfoStride, you can hire a solo Python developer or assemble a dedicated remote team of Python developers with the following advantages:
- Flexible engagement models: you can hire resources on an hourly, monthly or project basis as per your project’s requirement and budget.
- Recruitment savings: we provide you with access to pre-vetted Python developers, so saving your time and money in sourcing and vetting candidates.
- No infrastructure investment: we provide you Python developers who are already armed with a state-of-the-art development facility to start contributing from day one.
- Administrative support: From onboarding to payroll and compliance, we take care of everything on your behalf to let you focus on core competencies.
Interested? Share your requirements with us today and we’ll onboard Python developers that align with your precise needs.
Also Read: Guide to Build Offshore Development Teams
Conclusion
From Facebook to Netflix – leading global technology leaders use Python as a programming language for engineering enterprise-level, reliable and robust applications. Thus, no wonder why there’s high demand for skilled Python developers.
With proficient Python developers at your disposal to help you out, you’ll be able to leverage the technology to its fullest for your dream project.
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