Which Upcoming Web Developer Conference Should You Visit This Year?

Web technologies are evolving at a tremendous rate. Trends that were cutting-edge yesterday will not necessarily be key tomorrow. Understanding your client and end user, finding optimal solutions, ensuring safety, and keeping up with the latest advancements – a modern web developer needs it all.

One of the best ways to get the latest news is to attend web development conferences. Because of the pandemic, there were very limited opportunities to visit such events in 2020. Still, we have high hopes for 2021. The best web development conferences are scheduled this year, so there’s much of a choice. One should never ignore the numerous advantages they bring.

Benefits of Attending Web Development Conferences

When thinking about the purpose of the conferences, one wonders whether they are worth the time invested. The answer is yes, and here are the priorities of the best developer conferences.

• Revolutionary insights. Conference program committees take care of the data’s quality. The organizers choose the most profound reports and often help the speakers with preparation.
• Networking. You can discuss the complexities of web development and related solutions, see familiar problems from an unexpected angle, and get the big picture of the industry.
• Exclusive speakers. To climb the career ladder faster, we often need to see what we may face along the way. With inspiring stories from successful professionals, we can make decisions more consciously.
• Burnout prevention. One of the main delights of conferences is the possibility to change the environment, take a break from the routine, and reboot.

We have picked up the ten best upcoming web developer conferences dedicated to gaming, UX, software development, cloud innovation, and other spheres. A guide gives an overview of the events’ topics, places, costs, and other peculiarities that will make your choice easier.

Our research is based on the latest information from reliable sources. Yet, we strongly advise you to check the dates and available tickets on the official website development conference.

Game Developers Conference (July 19-23)

GDC is a professional web development event for game developers, visual artists, sound designers, VR and AR creators, vendor companies, recruiters, and career seekers.

Why visit it:

• the five days are filled with networking since the participants include business leaders, producers, programmers, and audio professionals;
• the latest services from such giants as Sony, Intel, Amazon, and Google are provided.
• the attendees gain insights into design and interactive narrative, digital marketing strategies, production management, UX, etc.

GDC takes place virtually – it’s hosted on the Swapcard platform. In the program, there are forums, lectures, and brainstorming discussions.

There are also small-group workshops for those interested in hands-on experience. The training takes place on Zoom.

As for the conference passes, there are several levels.

• All access – $1,199, including meetings with participants, summits, core concepts sessions, and GDC materials available till March 2022.
• Core – $799, covering networking with attendees and core concepts sessions.
• Summits – $699, including meetings and sessions.
• Expo – $249.

The registration form is available on the official website. Moreover, there’s a 10% discount in case you are registering a group of ten or more people.

UX Australia 2021 (August 24-27)

UX Australia is a hybrid web developer conference. It takes place at The Mint in Sydney and is broadcasted online via Zoom. UX is a multidisciplinary sphere, so the conference is of particular interest for

• product managers;
• graphic designers;
• writers;
• usability engineers;
• experience architects.

The event takes a hybrid form for the first time. The morning conference presentations are followed by the afternoon online workshops.

UX Australia is a community event. It is not about presentations only – meetings and networking do matter. The speakers are chosen by the community, and the conference is proposal-based.

The topics include design and visual storytelling, user experience techniques for a post-pandemic reality, artificial intelligence, and others.

As for the online workshops, they are related to

• information architecture activities and skills;
• career audit and strategy;
• the fundamentals of writing;
• the application of visual thinking.

The price for a standard conference ticket (i.e., an online attendance for all four days) is $700. To visit in person, you must pay $25 per day. Regarding workshop tickets, they are $300 each and need to be bought separately.

Also, there are discounts for students.

Devopsdays 2021 Series

One of the best developer conferences is the well-known series Devopsdays. These are worldwide technical events connected to IT infrastructure operations, software development, and everything in-between.

For the first time, Devopsdays took place in Belgium in 2009. Since then, their number has grown. The goal is simple: to guide and answer questions regarding organizational culture, security, automation, and testing. The events are organized by volunteers from the local community – you can even run one yourself.

On the official website, you can find a step-by-step guide on organizing a conference, which includes putting a team together, managing budgeting, finding sponsors, etc.

The series includes many upcoming events, but we’ll keep it short and offer you to visit the two most promising Devopsdays described further.

Devopsdays Zürich (September 7-8)

Devoted to software development and IT infrastructure operations, Devopsdays are held in Alte Kaserne Winterthur near Zürich. Here, 250 attendees take part in 8 talks and 5 workshops. There are 3 keynote speakers at the website development conference:

• Busra Koken, talking about the perspective of software that differs from day-to-day work;
• Jonathan Smart, discussing ways of delivering better value thanks to DevOps practices;
• Sebastien Goasguen, taking a critical look at tendencies and answering the question whether technology is leading humans or vice versa.

The conference offers various formats: self-organized open spaces, 5-minute talks with 20 auto-forwarding slides, workshops to gain practical experience, and 30-minute talks.

To register for the event, use the online form. After the payment is made, the ticket will be sent to you by email.

If you are interested in speaking at the conference, note that there’s a call for papers that takes place via a personal network, websites, and social media. Submissions are open to anyone.

As for the tickets, the early bird ones are sold out, but regular entry is still available. Each ticket is CHF 250 (approximately $272).

Devopsdays Houston (September 21-22)

Devopsdays Houston takes place at the Norris Conference Centers. Since the event is held in-person, safety measures are taken quite seriously. Be sure to visit the conference if you are interested in software engineering, testing, automation, and security. The formats of the web developer conference are different:

• ignites (20 slides changing every 15 seconds);
• open space content;
• 30-minute morning talks;
• afternoon 60-minute workshops.

Indeed, everyone can propose a talk, but there are some rules you need to follow:

• your tool should suit professionals from various backgrounds;
• opening up about challenges in your community is a good idea, especially if your experience is not a typical technological one;
• the content must be original and never presented to the public earlier;
• talks that advertise any product aren’t tolerated.

The information about the registration isn’t available yet, so we recommend monitoring the official website. Then, you’ll get a chance to buy an early bird ticket.

DeveloperWeek Global: Cloud (September 14-15)

DeveloperWeek Global 2021 is a large-scale website development conference that attracts 2,000 – 4,000 attendees.

This event is best-suited for those willing to discover brand-new cloud computing innovations. Attendees represent such fields as virtual development, cloud engineering, entrepreneurship, IT, and others.

Participation in DeveloperWeek Global 2021 gives you great opportunities.

• You’ll meet other participants during Q&A sessions with speakers, breaks devoted to networking, and pre-event reception.
• Virtual expo helps you connect to industry experts – thanks to virtual boots, you can receive promotions from them and win prizes.
• You will hone skills related to DevOps security, monitoring, cloud architectures, AI, and microservice.

The conference will take place online. Talks are held in the first part of the day, starting from ~9:30 AM and finishing at ~1:30 PM.

While registering, choose from three options:

• Open pass is $100.00;
• PRO pass is $225.00;
• Premium pass $495.00.

Please note that sales of PRO and Premium passes end on July 15.

Luckily, students and government employees get a 30% discount, while groups of three and more people – 25%.

DevOpsCon Hybrid Edition (September 27-30)

This web developer conference takes place in the New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge and online. Dedicated to microservices, containers, continuous delivery, and cloud business, it gives a chance to reevaluate the whole IT industry.

Probably, the main benefit of the conference is that it’s hybrid. Admire the in-person part thanks to a perfect New York location or join it from anywhere in the world. All four days of the event are full of sessions, workshops, and keynotes with world-known specialists. Attendees also appreciate workshops with hands-on coding and plenty of networking opportunities.

The program consists of workshops (Java Service Mesh with Istio, multi-cloud deployments, etc.) and sessions (crashing pods, secure microservices, serverless, etc.).

The prices for New York vary from 649 $ to 1.889 $, depending on the number of days you spend at the conference. As for the remote tickets, the situation is the same (tickets are from 599 $ 1.399 $). The good news is that there is a discount available until July 22. You can also register a group of 3 or more people and save 10%.

Open Source Summit North America (September 27-30)

The next on the list of web development conferences is the Open Source Summit in Seattle organized by the Linux Foundation. It attracts technologists, architects, and developers from all over the world. The goal is to share knowledge, collaborate, and gain insights into the latest technologies and innovative open solutions.

Participants navigate open source transformation and study the latest trends of cloud-native edge computing, AI, and web apps.

You can visit both in person and online. As for the schedule, the event takes place from 9 AM to 5:30 PM. There are technical and sponsor showcases, keynotes, breakout sessions, and mini summits.

You can attend Linux Foundation events thanks to a scholarship. There are two groups of requirements:

• an applicant represents an underrepresented or marginalized group, an open-source community, and can’t attend due to financial reasons;
• an applicant is an active member of the open-source community and can’t attend due to a lack of funding from the company.

The registration for Open Source Summit started in mid-June.

Strange Loop (September 30 – October 2)

Be sure to visit Strange Loop in St. Louis if concurrency, emerging languages, security, and alternative databases are your cup of tea.

Strange Loop has some crucial advantages.

1. Keynotes aren’t sold to sponsors. No marketing is a basic principle.
2. The event gathers speakers and attendees from various industries.
3. The ticket prices are moderate, and the conference’s length is reasonable.

The website development conference has an in-person format and relates to many spheres: AI, licensing, litter data, remote workstations, etc. The workshops cover such topics as open source journey, building generative art tools, OpenTelemetry, VisiData, and others.

An amazing bonus is a Strange Loop party, which is held at the City Museum. This place has weird slides and extraordinary tunnels, so be sure not to get lost.

The prices for the event vary from $200 (TLA+ Pre-workshop on September 29) to $700 for a regular rate until September 2. The student ticket costs $450. Attendees who need financial support may apply for opportunity grants – they are provided for underrepresented groups. The results of the grant program will be sent by July 23.

UXDX EMEA (October 6-8)

UXDX EMEA is an event for anyone engaged in developing the product, UX, and design. Visit the conference to build them better and faster. Thanks to the UXDX EMEA, attendees

1. improve their sustainability and solve problems;
2. upgrade the efficiency and make delivery their final goal;
3. enhance the effectiveness and validate the value.

Within the online conference, 2,000 participants take part in 16 workshops and meet 50+ speakers. The schedule is pretty intense: there will be talks on data-driven engineering teams, AI, microservices, the gap between the product and the platform, etc. Case studies deal with Minecraft, BMW, Preply, Brainly, and BuzzFeed.

Visiting UXDX EMEA, web developers can expect the following:

• motivated experts and handy tools;
• revolutionary approaches and techniques;
• overviewing the system of product delivery;
• analyzing the challenges behind well-known products.

Startups, freelancers, and students can get a ticket for €49. A ticket with access to all the talks and networking is €299, while the early bird is €159. A ticket including talks and workshops is €579, while the super early price is €349.

DEVOXX Belgium (November 8-12)

Visit Antwerp to attend a first-class tech event if you are keen on big data, front end, and programming languages (including Java). Here, developers also study architecture, security, and methodology.

The exact format of the web developer conference isn’t known yet due to government restrictions and the evolution of the virus. However, organizers claim that the information will be clear by the end of August. That’s when they will let attendees know whether the 2021 edition will be hybrid. As for the registrations, they are opening in September.

You’ve probably noticed that the topics cover a wide variety of issues. In addition to them, talks relate to developer culture, concurrency, infra, blockchain, etc. The program is intense as well.

• Days 1-2: hands-on sessions under the guidance of experienced professionals, 3-hour sessions to examine a particular topic, 30-minute “tools in action” sessions.
• Days 2-4: in a coding café, participants work together to improve the software.
• Days 3-4: keynotes, short sessions to have a quick overview of a specific subject.
• Days 3-5: 50-minute sessions.

The tickets’ prices aren’t available either, but in 2019 they started at 350 euros (approximately $417).

Event Apart San Francisco (December 13-15)

An Event Apart takes place in-person, in The Westin St. Francis Hotel in vibrant San Francisco. The conference lasts for three days and is perfect for specialists interested in UX, content, digital design, and code. 17 sessions also cover app development, front end, and predictions about the future of the industry.

The speakers aren’t confirmed yet, but you can follow the Event Apart on social media to be aware of the latest news.

As for the tickets, decide whether you want to attend just a few days or the entire event. This way, you may buy

• a one-day pass for $600 (including admission for the conference, schwag, breakfast, and lunch);
• а two-day pass for $1,100;
• а three-day pass for $1,500.

The last two types provide access to all social events, unlike the one-day pass.

In case you want to attend as a group of six people, the good news is that the sixth person attends for free. Anyone working in a non-profit, educational, or governmental structure can count on a $50 discount for one-day online events or a $100 discount for two- and three-day events.

The online tickets include six-months access to all events that happen on the days for which you’ve registered.

Is It Worth It?

Many aspiring developers look for new tools on the web, but they rarely find something truly extraordinary. Experienced professionals fall into another trap. By repeating outdated solutions, they risk getting stuck in what they are used to. Is there a way out? Yes! The best web development conferences broaden developers’ horizons and help them keep abreast of the latest news.

Writing the guide, we aimed at providing exhaustive information so that you can understand what to expect at each conference. Despite the format (whether it’s online or in-person), all events are of special value. Once you decide which one to attend, think about buying a ticket, as early bird ones are cheaper.