Codegarden 2026: Ubuntu

A few months ago, I wrote about my experience at Umbraco Spark 2026. Heading down to Bristol from my home office in rural Lincolnshire was exactly what I needed at the time. Working remotely had left me feeling pretty disconnected from the wider industry, and Spark gave me a much-needed reminder of why I enjoy software development in the first place. If Spark got me interested again, CodeGarden 2026 completely locked it in.

To put this year into context, I have to look back at CodeGarden 2025. Honestly, I went into it as a massive skeptic. I only really attended for moral support with a colleague, keeping mostly to myself. When the Umbraco rabbit bounded past offering high-fives, my immediate thought was, Do I really have to deal with a giant rabbit right now? I just didn't get the hype. The cheering and intense community enthusiasm left me completely bewildered. I was physically in Odense, but mentally, I hadn't left my desk in Lincolnshire.

This year was different. Walking into CodeGarden 2026, I noticed my whole attitude had shifted. Instead of lurking at the back and avoiding eye contact, I found myself actively looking out for the rabbit just to get a high-five.

The change wasn't just down to the good vibes left over from Spark. It came from a concept I’ve been dwelling on a lot lately: Ubuntu.

Ubuntu is an African philosophy often translated as "I am because we are." It's the idea that our growth, identity, and success are deeply connected to the people around us. In software development, it’s incredibly easy to forget this. We spend hours staring at screens, dealing with bugs in isolation, and falling into the trap of thinking it's a solitary job. But at CodeGarden, that philosophy felt incredibly real.

Open source doesn't work in a vacuum. The packages, the documentation, the forum answers—they rely entirely on collective effort. My own progress over the last year hasn't just come from grinding away at my desk; it’s happened because of the shared knowledge and support of the community. I’m a better developer because of the collective effort around Umbraco.

Throughout the week, the conversations went beyond basic API updates or technical features. People were talking about shared struggles and solving problems together. Getting over my career slump wasn't actually about learning a new framework; it was about reconnecting with people. Every quick chat over coffee or spontaneous open-space session made it clear that we aren't just isolated developers working on separate codebases. I lost momentum earlier in my career because I stayed cooped up in my own world. I'd forgotten the value of community.

That's the high-level takeaway from this year, but I know you're probably here for the actual event recap. Here is how the week went down:

The journey started from my wonderful in-laws house in Northampton. I travelled down from Sleaford the night before to make the journey to Stansted easier for myself. After a few small tasks in the morning and some final checks with the Spinbox team I headed down to the airport early. 

I am quite risk averse, in my head I think traffic, accident, no parking spaces, long security line, bags are going to get flagged. So getting to the airport early was a comfort. Arriving without too much of a hitch I logged in to do some final work while waiting for my flight

Due to flight delays I got into CPH Airport quite late. By the time I passed through immigration it was too late to take a train so the Metro it was. This ment it was a 20 minute walk to the hotel. Old me would of been fuming, but new me realsied nothing I could of done would of changed the outcome. So feeling same walking in a city on my own at 1am I took in the sights and sounds.

I still don't know if it is ok to cross the road in Denmark if its late at night, there's no cars but the man on the light is red.

At Codegarden you always hear about the Bingo night on Day 2 and the shenanigans that happens. I almost skipped the Awards Dinner because I was shattered from only having about 5 hours sleep. I'm glad I didn't skip it. 

The wonderful team from Gibe Digital adopted me as one of their own and sitting with Cat Todd, Steve Temple and the rest of the Gibe crew it was a spectacle I won't forget. 

From the Spice Girls reunion tour to the Peaky Blinders on stage enactment, there was nothing but pure chaos and joy. That coupled with some great conversations with Cat Todd... TODO:

TODO:
- Accelerating Package Development with Umbraco 17 automation (Paul Seal)

- AI in Umbraco (Matt Brailsford)

- Umbraco 17 Released and what we're building next(Andy Butland)

- Migrating three large websites built on Kentico, Wordpress and Webflow into one Umbraco platform(Daniel Horn)

- Automate all things (Shannon Thompson)

The last day of Codegarden week had a hackathon, a boat trip and a lunch at Warpigs on the agenda. Unfortunately due to the uncertainty of immigration control I had to forgo the boat trip to ensure I made it to the airport in good time. 

This was however my first official hackathon. It baffled me back at Umbraco Spark how a group of dev's could come up with a package in a short amount of time. Sure this time around it was only 3 hours but I managed to learn loads in that small amount of time in spinning up quick dev environments to get going. 

The highlight of my day, and arguable of my whole Codegarden experience was when the legendary gent himself, Paul Seal, sat next to me at the hackathon. We had met earlier in the week but we both had places to go, people to see and in Paul's defence a talk to prep for. However after some small talk we both realised we were on the same flight back to the UK and agreed to buddy up for the day. 

I was a little bit in shock really. A whole afternoon of just hanging out with the guy that taught me how to Umbraco. I felt a bit privilege. that on top of having lunch with Joe Glombek who inspired me back at Spark and graciously featured me in some of his talk. Then joined by Shannon Thompson (Deminick) I felt a little both out of place in my own head but welcomed with open arms by this great group.

You think a bunch of developers when put together will talk about tech but no. We spoke about our journeys, lives, the events of the week. 

The wait at the airport was long but Paul and I continued our conversations and spoke about life, family, holidays and I got a front row seat demo of his package script writer.

But alas, all good things must come to an end and we parted ways to sit in our separate seats and onward journeys. 

I never really experienced the Codegarden blues before. Partly because my first Codegarden I hadn't quite absorbed all of it. So it was quite a shock to the system.

To soften the blow, I threw on my brand new Umbraco hoodie. Sure, it’s June, but I needed the comfort blanket. I zipped it up and headed out for a walk around the farms near the house just to clear my head.

It’s a massive contrast. Out on those dirt tracks, the frantic rushing between sessions was replaced by the slow crunch of my boots, and the roar of the crowd gave way to just the wind blowing through the crops. But that quiet Lincolnshire countryside was exactly the reset I needed to let the week sink in.

You go to these events expecting to focus entirely on the technical stuff. But walking the perimeter of those empty fields, it hit me why the comedown was so real this year.

CodeGarden 2026 proved to me that the magic of software development isn't just in the code we write, but in the people we build it with. So, to the person in the rabbit costume—thank you for the high-five. And to the Umbraco community, thank you for showing me what Ubuntu truly looks like in action.