What are the top conferences developers should attend in 2018? It depends on what your goals are.

• Do you want to learn a new programming language?
• Are you looking to implement DevOps within your organization?
• Are you in the market for a new job?

You’ll also want to identify factors that will play a role in your decision-making process.

• What’s your level of experience on the topic you’d like to learn more about?
• Is your travel limited to certain geographies?
• What’s your max budget for a ticket, travel and accommodations?

With that being said, we’ve put together our list of the top 7 tech conferences for developers. We’ll give you the inside scoop on location, timeframe, cost and more.

Top 7 Tech Conferences for Developers

1. GitHub Universe

Location: San Francisco, CA

Cost: $299 Early Bird pricing ends July 1

Date: October 16-17, 2018

The past 3 years, GitHub Universe has been held at an old, industrial warehouse at Pier 70. We love the look and feel of the space. GitHub partners with creatives to build an experience unlike any other conference. Rather than visiting hotel conference rooms for lectures and exhibit halls filled with sponsor booth, this venue is very open so attendees can flow naturally from one space to the next. You’ll be exposed to new products and services by interacting with different art installations or kicking back in one of the many sponsored lounge areas. And you’ll always have access to good food and drinks.

The content is broken down with specific tags to help you identify which meet your goals: Enterprise, Open Source, Social Impact, Education, Community, Code, Operations, Architecture, Automation, Admin, People, Data, Electron, GraphQL, Git, Integrations, Scaling GitHub Collaboration, Security, Product Design, Hubot, GitHub Talk, GitHub Partner Talk, and GitHub Integrator Talk. The caveat for this conference is that GitHub users will get the most out of the content.

Because GitKraken integrates nicely with GitHub and GitHub Enterprise, as well as GitLab and Bitbucket, we’re able to offer something of value to almost every attendee. We’ve been sponsors since the conference’s inception in 2015, and you shouldn’t be surprised to see us again in 2018!

2. DeveloperWeek

Location: New York, NY

Cost: $200 – $1,045

Date: June 18-20, 2018

This is a big one! Join 3,000+ developers, DevOps pros and executives at DeveloperWeek NY. There will be 30+ dev exhibitors showing off tools that can make your life easier, 100+ talks & technical workshops, and city-wide events.

There are 4 types of passes you can purchase: Exec, Pro, Open or the Expo pass. We recommend the Pro Pass if you want access to various types of content, including the DevExec Conference, DevOps Conference, FinTech Dev Conference, API & Microservices Conference, JavaScript Conference, Mobile Dev & Serverless Tracks, city-wide partner events, open talks, an online networking app, mentorship mixers, keynotes and a 2-day Expo Hall.

If you want to get a great taste of DeveloperWeek content, opt for an Open Pass. You’ll get access to Open Sessions, Keynotes, and the Expo.

Don’t miss these two Open Sessions:

• Improving Your Development Processes with Cutting-Edge Tools at 3:30pm on Tues., June 19th
• Improving Your Development Processes with Git Best Practices at 10:30am on Tues., June 19th

DeveloperWeek NY also includes a 300-person hackathon and a developer hiring mixer. There’s truly a little something for developers at every career level. Get the scoop on each “mini-conference” and events within the conference, to decide which align with your goals.

Pro Tip:Use our sponsor link for a free Open Pass ($200 value)!

3. DevOps World / Jenkins World

Location: San Francisco, CA

Cost: $499 Super Early Bird pricing ends June 22 | $999 Early Bird pricing ends July 15 | $1,199

Date: September 16-19, 2018

Details: This conference brings together IT executives, DevOps practitioners, Jenkins users and partnersto learn, explore, network and help shape the future of DevOps and Jenkins. Topics covered will range from DevOps and culture, to process design, automated testing, performance management, security and more.

Pro Tip: Stop by the GitKraken booth to get free swag, and for a chance to win awesome prizes!

4. DevOps Enterprise Summit

Location: Las Vegas, NV

Cost: Early Bird $1,400

Date: October 22-24, 2018

DevOps Enterprise Summit caters to the leaders of large, complex organizations whose goals are to implement DevOps principles and practices. The event programming emphasizes both evolving technical and architectural practices and the methods needed to lead widespread change efforts in large organizations. Leaders will walk away with the tools and practices they need to develop and deploy software faster.

We love that it’s not just keynotes and panels; there are breakout sessions, DevOps workshops, speaker Q&A sessions, lightning talks, networking, and an expo hall where you can find out about useful DevOps tools like GitKraken! They’ve honed in on topics of most interest to the DevOps community, including: Getting Business Buy-In, Security and Compliance, Ops and Next Generation Leadership, Architecture, Technology for Technology Leaders, and Experience Reports.

Pro Tip:Subscribe for DevOps Enterprise Summit updates. You’ll get updates about early bird pricing, and if you can’t attend, you’ll be able to watch the conference live stream—or videos and slide decks will get published afterward!

5. Node Summit

Location: San Francisco, CA

Cost: $745 – $1,895

Date: July 23-27, 2018

Node Summit is the largest conference focused exclusively on Node.js. Node is designed to build scalable network applications, and Node.js’ package ecosystem, npm, is the largest ecosystem of open source libraries in the world. The Axosoft GitKraken team uses the native node module NodeGit, for GitKraken, and is one of the main contributors to it.

At Node Summit, you’ll get a chance to mingle with experts and thought leaders; the attendees at Node Summit include some of the best Node.js engineers in the world, as well as tech executives, business leaders, Node enthusiasts, engineers and investors. You’ll get to hear talks from experts at companies like Google, Twitter, Microsoft, NodeSource and Node.js.

6. Codeland

Location: New York, NY

Cost: $99 – $299

Date: May 4-5, 2018

New to coding? Let us introduce you to CodeNewbie: the most supportive community of developers learning to code. They produce a tech podcast, twitter chats, events, and you guessed it—Codeland! Codeland is intentionally laid back, affordable, and welcoming to newbies. The organizers of this event emphasize inspiration and inclusivity as important components in solving problems.

There are practical planning talks on topics such as using side projects to build up your portfolio, contributing to open source, and crafting your personal learning strategy. You won’t want to miss the hands-on workshops where you can tackle technical and non-technical coding projects.

Pro Tip: GitKraken is a Git GUI client for Windows, Mac and Linux developers. It’s a great tool if you’re new to Git and still grasping how Git actions and commands work. Skip the time-consuming process of memorizing a bunch of commands and download GitKraken for free!

7. AWS re:Invent

Location: Las Vegas, NV

Cost: $1,799

Date: November 26-30, 2018

Details: This conference is massive! AWS re:Invent is a learning conference hosted by Amazon Web Services for the global cloud computing community. The event features keynote announcements, training and certification opportunities. Over 30,000 developers, systems admins, systems architects and technical decision makers are expected to attend, which means there will be over 1,000+ breakout sessions, multiple hackathons, bootcamps, workshops, and more ways to get hands-on experiences with AWS experts.

It’s impossible to attend every session; don’t stress! Some of the most popular deep-dive sessions are on the schedule more than once and others will be streamed to overflow rooms at other venues. This year, 75% of the seats for each session can be reserved and the other 25% are for walk-up attendees. Try to reserve seats ahead of time for the sessions you really don’t want to miss! Sessions are categorized by track, level, role, tag, day, speaker, etc.

You can also tune in to www.twitch.tv/aws for live streaming keynote recaps, interviews with AWS experts and community leaders, and demos of new product launches.

What you can’t get remotely is quality networking time! Make sure to take advantage of your time at the conference to speak with other attendees, presenters and vendors. The Exhibit Hall is a great place to find solutions to problems you may have identified leading-up-to or while at the conference. Remember, you’ll be amongst developers who are likely experiencing the same challenges.

Plus, it’s Vegas! There will be tons of fun to be had; play broomball, attend the re:Play party, fitness bootcamps, Tatonka Challenge, pub crawl and more.

Pro Tip: Whether you’re able to attend AWS re:Invent or not, tune into the live stream to catch the keynotes from your home, hotel or office; you’re ensured a better seat that way. And if all else fails, most sessions are recorded and will be available on YouTube after the conference is over.