Three-day cloud-native technology conference at Schuppen 52, a historic waterfront warehouse in Hamburg, September 2-4. Over 120 speaking sessions across four stages covering Kubernetes, containers, DevOps, platform engineering and AI infrastructure, with a co-located AI Context Series dedicated to AI agent infrastructure.
ContainerDays Hamburg is an annual cloud-native technology conference held at Schuppen 52, a former Imperial Era warehouse on Hamburg's waterfront. The 2026 edition runs for three days with 120+ speaking sessions and 100+ speakers across four stages, including a special off-site stage aboard the historic vessel MS Bleichen. The programme covers Kubernetes, containers, DevOps, cloud-native architecture, platform engineering and AI/ML infrastructure. A co-located AI Context Series runs alongside the main programme, dedicated to the infrastructure powering real-world AI agents. The conference is organised by Loovent UG and sits within the developer and AI-engineering circuit tracked by Events Index.
ContainerDays Hamburg is Germany's primary annual gathering for cloud-native practitioners. The conference covers the operational and engineering side of running containerised workloads at scale, from Kubernetes and storage to networking, observability, security and platform engineering. The 2026 addition of the AI Context Series signals a direct response to AI infrastructure becoming a core concern for cloud-native engineering teams, a shift that also runs through adjacent events on the developer and AI-engineering circuit.
The event returns to Hamburg for 2026 after the September 2025 edition ran on 9-11 September at the same waterfront setting. Independent recaps of that edition, including one from Cyso Cloud, put attendance at roughly 10 percent of KubeCon's scale and framed the smaller size as a deliberate trade of breadth for technical depth. The 2026 edition keeps that community-first character while expanding the four-stage format and the AI track.
Schuppen 52 is a listed warehouse on Hamburg's Elbe waterfront, built during the Imperial Era, and provides the primary conference space across its main stages. For 2026 a special off-site stage is added aboard MS Bleichen, a historic vessel moored nearby, giving one track a distinct maritime setting. The venue sits in Hamburg's harbour district with a view of the city skyline. It is reachable from Hamburg Hauptbahnhof by S-Bahn to Baumwall (line S3, approximately 10 minutes) followed by a short walk, or by ferry from the Überseebrücke during warmer months.
The four main stages span ten declared programme tracks: Kubernetes and operations, security for container environments, cloud-native experience (patterns and architectural practice), networking, observability, Go programming, storage, application development, platform engineering, and AI/ML.
The AI Context Series, co-located with the main programme, focuses specifically on infrastructure for real-world AI agents: LLMOps, AI workload orchestration, agentic-system platforms, and GPU and accelerator infrastructure patterns.
Session formats include technical talks (typically 25 to 35 minutes), deep-dive sessions and panel discussions. Sessions are conducted in English, which opens the programme to the international cloud-native community rather than German-speaking attendees alone.
The organiser states 100+ international speakers across the four stages. The full line-up is published at containerdays.io/containerdays-hamburg-2026/speakers.
Kubernetes is central but the programme spans the full cloud-native stack: containers, service meshes, observability, storage, networking, Go, security and platform engineering. The AI Context Series adds a dedicated AI infrastructure dimension. Attendees come for the breadth as much as the Kubernetes depth, which is what separates it from a single-topic event.
The AI Context Series is a co-located track within ContainerDays Hamburg dedicated to the infrastructure powering real-world AI agents. It covers LLMOps, AI workload orchestration, agentic-system platforms, and GPU and accelerator infrastructure patterns, and it runs alongside the main cloud-native programme rather than replacing it.
Yes. ContainerDays Hamburg conducts its sessions in English, making the programme accessible to the international cloud-native community rather than German-speaking attendees only.
ContainerDays is deliberately smaller. The organiser expects 1,000+ attendees, and an independent recap of the 2025 edition by Cyso Cloud estimated attendance at roughly 10 percent of KubeCon's scale, describing the result as a concentrated community of technical practitioners where technical depth took precedence over breadth. It is a community-oriented conference rather than a large vendor expo.
Loovent UG (haftungsbeschränkt) is a Hamburg-based event company registered at the Amtsgericht Hamburg (HRB 140339) and headquartered at Willy-Brandt-Straße 23, 20457 Hamburg. It runs ContainerDays as its flagship conference series for cloud-native technologies, DevOps, platform engineering and AI, and also operates the event's ticketing through tickets.loovent.com. Beyond the Hamburg edition, the organiser has extended the ContainerDays brand to a London edition, positioning the series as a recurring European cloud-native fixture rather than a single annual event.
The 2026 partner roster is organised in tiers on the official site. Confirmed sponsors as of this verification include:
The presence of the CNCF (Cloud Native Computing Foundation) as a partner reinforces the event's positioning within the official cloud-native community. Attendees comparing cloud-native and AI-engineering events elsewhere on the circuit also track the Cloud Native and Open Source AI Conference, the Enterprise DevOps Summit 2026, and Berlin Buzzwords for adjacent audiences.
ContainerDays Hamburg draws practitioner and vendor coverage rather than mainstream technology-press reporting, which is consistent with its community scale. The confirmed coverage below reflects that pattern:
No independent national or trade-press coverage (for example from a general technology newsroom) was confirmed for the event as of this verification. Media and press passes are free on request via info@containerdays.io; the organiser does not publish accredited-journalist counts.
ContainerDays Hamburg earns its place on the calendar precisely because it is not KubeCon: a four-stage, English-language, practitioner-first conference at roughly a tenth of the scale, where the trade is breadth for depth. The 2026 addition of the AI Context Series is the signal worth watching, cloud-native engineering teams are now treating AI-agent infrastructure as a core operational concern, and this event is one of the first on the developer and AI-engineering circuit to give it a dedicated co-located track.
Registration runs through the official ticket shop at tickets.loovent.com. Three-day conference passes are tiered by purchase window, with prices excluding VAT:
| Pass tier | Window | Individual | Corporate | Team (3+) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crazy Bird | Oct 2025 – Feb 2026 | €299 | €599 | not available |
| Early Bird | Mar – Apr 2026 | €399 | €699 | not available |
| Normal Bird | May – Jun 2026 | €499 | €799 | €649 each |
| Late Bird | Jul – Sep 2026 | €599 | €999 | €849 each |
Student tickets are €99 + VAT with a valid student ID (discount code via info@containerdays.io). Press and media passes are free on request. Corporate passes apply to registrants whose employer is paying; individual passes apply to those not employed by a company or working for a non-profit. As of this verification (7 July 2026), the Late Bird window is the active tier.
Schuppen 52 is in Hamburg's harbour district near HafenCity and Speicherstadt. From Hamburg Hauptbahnhof, take the S3 S-Bahn to Baumwall (approximately 10 minutes) then walk a short distance. A ferry from the Überseebrücke is also an option during warmer months. The MS Bleichen off-site stage is moored nearby.
Three-day passes are tiered by purchase window, from €299 (individual, earliest tier) up to €999 (corporate, Late Bird). Team pricing of €649 to €849 per pass applies to corporate groups of three or more from May onwards. Students pay €99 + VAT with valid ID, and press passes are free on request. All prices exclude VAT.
Recording availability is not confirmed at time of verification. Check containerdays.io after the event for any published session recordings.
| Official website | https://www.containerdays.io/containerdays-hamburg-2026/ |
| Register | https://tickets.loovent.com/cdshamburg2026/ |
| Speakers | https://www.containerdays.io/containerdays-hamburg-2026/speakers/ |
| Partners | https://www.containerdays.io/containerdays-hamburg-2026/partners/ |
| Developer and AI-engineering circuit (Events Index) | /developer-ai.html |
| Upcoming EMEA events (Events Index) | /upcoming.html |