Every year, the Umbraco community comes together for Codegarden, the official conference dedicated to the future of Umbraco CMS. Developers, agencies, partners, and the Umbraco team gather to share ideas, explore new technologies, and get a firsthand look at where the platform is headed.
Codegarden 2026 marked a significant milestone as the conference moved from its longtime home in Odense to Copenhagen, Denmark. While the location changed, the spirit of the event remained the same. Thousands of attendees came together to learn, collaborate, and celebrate one of the strongest open source communities in web development.
This year, Chris Houston, Managing Director of Umbricians, and Miguel Lopez, Web Developer, attended Codegarden to experience the latest innovations shaping the future of Umbraco. Chris also participated in the exclusive Umbraco MVP Summit before the conference, giving him an early look at upcoming platform features and the opportunity to collaborate directly with the Umbraco leadership team and fellow MVPs.
Together, they returned with fresh ideas, new technical insights, and an even greater appreciation for the community that continues to make Umbraco unique. Here's what stood out most from their experience.
What Is Codegarden?
Codegarden is Umbraco's annual conference and the largest gathering of the global Umbraco community. Developers, designers, agencies, content editors, and business leaders attend to hear directly from the Umbraco product team, participate in technical workshops, discover new platform capabilities, and connect with professionals from around the world.
More than just a technology conference, Codegarden is where the future of Umbraco takes shape. New features are introduced, ideas are shared, and conversations between the product team and the community help shape the platform's direction.
Why We Attend Codegarden
At Umbricians, staying current with Umbraco isn't optional. It's part of our commitment to every partner we work with.
Codegarden gives our team direct access to product announcements, technical sessions, workshops, and conversations with the people building the platform. Those experiences allow us to bring new ideas home, improve our development practices, and confidently recommend the latest features and best practices to our clients.
As an Umbraco Gold Partner, we believe investing in events like Codegarden ultimately helps us deliver better websites, stronger long-term support, and more innovative digital experiences.
Inside the Umbraco MVP Summit
Before Codegarden officially began, Chris attended the Umbraco MVP Summit, an invitation-only event that brought together approximately one hundred Umbraco MVPs from around the world.
Over two days, MVPs explored upcoming platform features, discussed technical challenges, and collaborated directly with the Umbraco product team. It provided a unique opportunity to dive deeper into the technologies shaping future releases and to share feedback with the people building the platform.
Being recognized as an Umbraco MVP is a significant achievement within the community, making the summit an especially valuable experience. It reinforced one of Umbraco's greatest strengths, its willingness to listen to developers and continuously improve the platform through community collaboration.
A Community Unlike Any Other
One of the themes both Chris and Miguel kept coming back to was the Umbraco community.
For Miguel, Codegarden continues to be one of the most welcoming technology conferences he's attended.
After attending several Codegardens over the years, reconnecting with old friends and meeting new developers has become one of the highlights of the conference. Even for someone who considers himself quiet, Miguel found it easy to start conversations, exchange ideas, and learn from developers facing similar challenges.
Chris shared a similar perspective after nearly two decades working with Umbraco.
He believes the community has always been one of the platform's greatest strengths. Throughout his career, the relationships built through Codegarden and the wider Umbraco ecosystem have created a global network of people who are always willing to help solve problems and share knowledge.
One memorable moment came before the conference officially began. Chris joined Umbraco CEO Mats Persson, CTO Filip Bech Larsen, and other staff members and partners for the annual Codegarden bike ride through a deer park on the outskirts of Copenhagen. What started as a relaxing ride quickly became unforgettable after two powerful thunderstorms left everyone soaked and covered in mud.
Those shared experiences are part of what makes Codegarden different from many other technology conferences. The conversations don't end when the presentations do.
AI Took Center Stage
If there was one message repeated throughout Codegarden 2026, it was clear.
Artificial intelligence is becoming an important part of Umbraco's future.
From keynote presentations to live demonstrations, AI appeared throughout the conference as developers explored practical ways to improve workflows, reduce repetitive tasks, and create better digital experiences.
That was Miguel's biggest takeaway.
Rather than replacing developers, the focus was on giving them better tools that make development faster, smarter, and more efficient.
For Chris, the announcements about Umbraco AI and Umbraco Automation demonstrated how seriously Umbraco is investing in the future while staying true to its commitment to open-source development.
AI and Automation Are Reshaping Umbraco
Among the biggest product announcements were the continued evolution of Umbraco AI and the introduction of Umbraco Automation.
Umbraco AI creates a centralized way for developers to integrate AI services into an Umbraco solution. Instead of building custom implementations for every project, developers now have a standard framework for managing AI settings, controlling tone of voice, and governing how AI agents interact with content.
Equally important, the platform respects the existing permissions configured within Umbraco, ensuring AI only accesses content users are authorized to see.
Chris was equally excited about Umbraco Automation.
Instead of building custom workflows from scratch for every project, developers can now create visual automation workflows that content editors configure through an intuitive no-code interface.
That means repetitive business processes, approvals, notifications, publishing workflows, and other automated tasks become easier to build, manage, and expand over time.
Looking ahead, Chris believes automation will become a much bigger part of future client projects.
A Live Demonstration That Stood Out
While AI was a recurring theme throughout the conference, one session stood above the rest for Miguel.
Automate All the Things, presented by Shannon Thompson, wasn't just another presentation about artificial intelligence. It was a live demonstration showing how AI agents, Model Context Protocol (MCP), and orchestration tools could work together to build a complete website from a single prompt.
Instead of talking about what AI might be capable of in the future, Shannon demonstrated it in real time. The AI-generated code created the site's design, wrote tests, produced content, and assembled a fully functional website while documenting what it was learning throughout the process.
For Miguel, it was one of the clearest examples of how AI can become a practical development tool rather than simply a productivity assistant.
Chris also found the keynote from Umbraco CEO Mats Persson particularly insightful. Alongside the many sessions focused on AI and automation, Mats shared the long-term vision for Umbraco and reinforced the company's commitment to remaining the leading open source .NET platform while continuing to innovate alongside its community.
Learning Beyond the Main Stage
Not every valuable lesson happened in the conference halls.
Miguel participated in an exclusive security workshop limited to just twenty attendees. The hands-on session explored practical ways to strengthen website security and highlighted techniques developers can immediately apply to future projects.
Security continues to be one of the most important considerations for organizations building enterprise websites, and workshops like these provide an opportunity to learn directly from experts while discussing real-world implementation challenges.
Experiences like this are one of the reasons Codegarden delivers so much value. Beyond the keynotes and breakout sessions, attendees gain access to conversations and workshops that aren't available anywhere else.
Bringing New Ideas Home
One of the biggest benefits of attending Codegarden is returning with ideas that immediately improve client work.
For Miguel, the conference reinforced how AI-assisted development and automation can streamline everyday development while creating better experiences for both developers and content editors.
Conversations with other developers also reminded him that there are often multiple ways to solve the same challenge. Sharing those experiences helps uncover new approaches that lead to cleaner code, easier maintenance, and more flexible websites.
Chris sees similar opportunities through Umbraco AI and Umbraco Automation.
By reducing repetitive development work and giving content editors more control through visual workflows, future projects can become more efficient while remaining easier to maintain over time.
Together, these advancements allow us to spend more time solving business problems and less time rebuilding common functionality from scratch.
More Than a Conference
One thing both Chris and Miguel agreed on is that Codegarden is about much more than product announcements.
It's about learning from the people building Umbraco, exchanging ideas with developers from around the world, and becoming part of a community that genuinely wants to help one another succeed.
For Chris, that sense of community has been one of the defining parts of his nineteen years working with Umbraco.
Miguel shares that same enthusiasm
Those experiences are difficult to capture in keynote slides or product announcements, but they are what continue to make Codegarden one of the most respected conferences in the Umbraco ecosystem.
Looking Ahead
Codegarden continues to shape the future of Umbraco, and every year brings new ideas, technologies, and opportunities to build better digital experiences. As AI, automation, security, and content management continue to evolve, we're excited to keep learning, testing, and bringing those innovations back to the businesses we support.
Whether you're planning an Umbraco upgrade, exploring AI-powered workflows, improving performance, or looking for a trusted development partner, our team is committed to staying at the forefront of the platform so your website is ready for what's next.