JavaScript is very popular overall, possibly more than Java, and it is, without a doubt, the dominant client-side language, but its prospects on the server are

JavaScript is very popular overall, possibly more than Java, and it is, without a doubt, the dominant client-side language, but its prospects on the server are currently not as rosy as they were five years ago. It's never materialised as a solid, responsible choice for big, important, server-side applications, and it's lost the coolness factor it had when Node was young. The market is much more fragmented than it was in, say, 2004, and so Java is not likely to regain its anomalous overwhelming dominance it had back then anytime soon, but no other language seems posed to do that, either.