What is your favorite conference and why?

I recently went to AccessU and it was full of so much great information, amazing speakers, and a variety of topics. It never felt overly large and left with lots of inspiration (and guilt for mistakes I've been making for years). It was 4 days with the workshop, which as Molly mentioned - was a little exhausting by the end for me.

I've done larger cover everything conferences like SXSW and it felt really good being at one with a more specific topic.

I've only been once but I really enjoyed QCon. I like that it's just about developing software, rather than being focused on a particular tech stack. Instead you get talks about real world problems in tech, not all of which are actually about the tech! Some of the best talks I went to were on the people side, like how to build a team or maintain a good company culture.

I would say that it's probably not a conference you need to go to every year. Talking to people who went in later years it seems like 50% of the content stays the same between years, as maybe different people present about the same trend/problem/solution.

definitely Google IO 🙌🙌 I've been to a bunch of conf in Europe (droidcon, devfest, deepsec) but the one Google does is in the big league, well prepared speakers, amazing fun areas, great code workshops.

My favorite conference so far has been RubyHACK.

I loved RailsConf and RubyConf but what made RubyHACK special for me was the size. It was a 2-day, single-track conference with about 300 people. That size felt really comfortable for me. I never felt overwhelmed and I was able to really get to know people over the course of the two days. The 2-day length was also perfect for me. As someone who is more of an introvert, 3-day conferences sometimes overwhelm me and by day 3 I am toast.

I really like All Things Open.

It is well run and big but not too big.

This year will be my 4th year attending and I have several people I only see at ATO.

Oh and if you can get one in a mens size, the T shirts are awesome.

FOSDEM (an european event) because its related to FOSS so you can meet people about many languages (devroom Java, Python, Rust etc ...), OSes like BSD, databases, embeded, radio and community initiatives (OpenStreetMap...) so it's very diversified.
Furthemore FOSDEM stand at Brussels in Winter a beautiful city with good food.

Look into the features that Nextcloud offers you in a self hosted FOSS solution.

Jitsi Meet is a simple solution too.

For solutions hosted by someone else I liked Uberconference and appear.in for down and dirty quick solutions that work well and accessible without having to d/l some invasive Citrix crappola that I just will not abide, and the dude usually abides ;)

I hope that helps!

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RubyConf is my overall favorite. I love the speaking opportunities I’ve had at O’Reilly conferences. But RubyConf always feels like home. Probably because I’ve spent the last 13 years steeped in Ruby and it’s community.

PyOhio. I try to go every year even though I don't really like Python. There are always really interesting talks about technology as a whole and it's continually the most diverse tech conference I've been to.

And it's happening this weekend in Columbus, Ohio. Stop by and take a look.

I’ve only been to a couple but they were both good because they had talks I wouldn’t normally watch but glad I did. They were Generate in London (which has changed to Generate CSS this year) and Re:Develop in Bournemouth.