What programming language does scratch use?
What Scratch is built on
Scratch 3.0 (the current version, released 2019) is built entirely in JavaScript and HTML5. Earlier versions ran on Flash (2.0) and Squeak, a Smalltalk variant (1.0). The shift to JavaScript in 3.0 is why Scratch now works on any browser without plugins, including on tablets and Chromebooks.
What kids are actually learning
Even though Scratch runs on JavaScript, kids don't see or write any of it. What they learn is the underlying logic that all programming languages share: sequences, loops, conditionals, variables, events, and parallelism. A repeat block in Scratch becomes a for loop in Python. An if/else block stays an if/else in every language.
What coding language is Scratch
Scratch is its own visual programming language, not a version of Python or JavaScript. It uses drag-and-drop blocks instead of typed syntax, but teaches the same logic: loops, conditionals, variables, and events. Under the hood it runs on JavaScript, but kids never see or write any of it.
What comes after Scratch
The most common next step is Python — it's readable, beginner-friendly, and the concepts from Scratch map directly onto it. Some kids move to JavaScript or web development instead. Either way, the transition is significantly easier after Scratch because the thinking is already in place.
