KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2026 Guide

KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2026 brings the brightest minds shaping the future of open-source and cloud-native computing to Salt Lake City, Utah, from November 9-12, 2026.

Join Spacelift at KubeCon! We’ll be at Booth #202, so drop by to say hello, grab some swag, and chat with our team about how we can help streamline your workflows.

In this guide, we cover everything you need to know before you head to KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2026.

KubeCon is the flagship conference organized by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), focused on Kubernetes and cloud-native technologies. It brings together developers, DevOps engineers, architects, and IT leaders to discuss trends, best practices, and advancements in container orchestration and cloud-native infrastructure.

KubeCon is held annually in North America and Europe, with occasional regional editions (e.g., India/Asia).

Here are some things you should know before attending this year’s event:

When and where is KubeCon North America 2026 taking place?

KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2026 will take place in person from November 9-12, with November 9 featuring pre-event programming and November 10-12 hosting the main conference. The venue is the Salt Palace Convention Center, 90 South West Temple, Salt Lake City. The program includes keynotes, conference sessions across 10+ tracks, tutorials, and networking options.

Pricing and access types

Attendees can choose between two pass types: All‑Access (includes CNCF‑hosted co‑located events on November 9) or KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Only (access to the core conference only).

Each pass type is offered under multiple pricing tiers (early bird, standard, late), and across registration categories: Corporate, Individual, and Academic.

• Corporate: for attendees sponsored by for‑profit companies or government entities
• Individual: for self‑funded registrants, non‑profit workers, or independent professionals
• Academic: discounted rate for full‑time students and faculty (requires valid ID)

In addition, accepted speakers receive complimentary All-Access passes, and there is no single-day pass for CNCF-hosted co-located events.

Accommodation

The Linux Foundation has secured official hotel blocks at multiple downtown Salt Lake City hotels near the Salt Palace Convention Center. Rooms will most likely sell out in advance of the room block close dates, so attendees are encouraged to book early to secure a room at the conference rate.

Here are some of the recommended hotels:

• Hilton Salt Lake City Center
• Salt Lake Marriott Downtown at City Creek
• Salt Lake Marriott City Center
• Kimpton Hotel Monaco Salt Lake City
• Hyatt Place Salt Lake City/Downtown/The Gateway

Transport

The conference is held at the Salt Palace Convention Center in downtown Salt Lake City, which is well connected by public transport.

For convenience and cost-efficiency:

• From the airport: Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC) is about 8 miles away. It’s a 10–20 minute drive or a 20-minute ride on the TRAX Green Line.
• Public transit: TRAX and buses cost $2.50 one way. The venue is in the Free Fare Zone, so rides that start and end inside it are free.
• Parking: The venue has two lots, 200 South and 300 West, both with accessible spaces. Posted rates apply.
• Walking: Most official hotels are a short walk from the venue.
• Bikes: GreenBike offers bike share around the city.

For faster local movement, Atlanta also offers e-scooters and bike shares, though availability may vary near the venue.

Co-located events

On Monday, November 9, CNCF will host a slate of co‑located, deep‑dive events (accessible via the All‑Access pass), including:

Event Name	Focus area	Description
Kubernetes on Edge Day	Edge computing	Use cases and architectures for running Kubernetes in low-latency, constrained, and remote environments.
Open Source SecurityCon	Cloud-native security	Covers supply chain security, threat detection, vulnerability management, and secure software delivery.
ArgoCon	GitOps & workflows	Highlights Argo CD, Argo Workflows, Rollouts, and Events for continuous delivery in Kubernetes.
BackstageCon	Developer portals	Explores how Backstage streamlines developer experience with plugins, catalogs, and integrations.
CiliumCon	eBPF networking & security	Cilium’s role in observability, network policy enforcement, and scalable Kubernetes connectivity.
FluxCon	GitOps automation	Discusses production patterns, progressive delivery, and the extensibility of Flux in CI/CD pipelines.
OpenTofu Day	Open-source IaC tooling	Migrations, technical deep dives, panels, and new OpenTofu use cases (half-day, afternoon).
Platform Engineering Day	Internal platforms	Focuses on building, scaling, and managing IDPs for developer self-service and platform teams.
Agentics Day: MCP + Agents	AI agents & MCP	Building MCP servers and clients, securing agent tool use, and governing agentic systems on Kubernetes.
Cloud Native AI + Inference Day	AI/ML inference	Running LLM inference and MLOps in production on Kubernetes, including scheduling, autoscaling, and GPU efficiency.
Observability Day	Observability	OpenTelemetry and observability end-user stories, cost and scale, and AI/LLM observability.

To help you navigate the packed agenda of this year’s Kubecon North America, here are some of our top picks:

• Building My Own IaC Engine Was a Mistake: Why I Now Use OpenTofu – Ryan Djurovich | Monday, November 9, 2026, 3:55 PM MST | Salt Palace, Level 1, Ballroom H (OpenTofu Day)
• DRY Out Your Tofu, with Symbol Libraries! – Christian Mesh | Monday, November 9, 2026, 5:15 PM MST | Salt Palace, Level 1, Ballroom H (OpenTofu Day)
• Is Platform Engineering and the Platform Maturity Model Still Relevant in the Agentic AI Era? – Chris Plank & Corey McGalliard | Monday, November 9, 2026, 9:25 AM MST | Salt Palace, Level 1, Ballroom BDF (Platform Engineering Day)
• From Consumers to Contributors: How Growing Open Source Members Transformed Our ML Platform Team – Tolga Tuncoglu & Herik Webb | Tuesday, November 10, 5:30 PM MST | Salt Palace, Level 1, Grand Ballroom BDF
• Hardening Kubernetes for GovCloud: A 3-Year Journey to FedRAMP Moderate Authorization – Artur Beznosyuk & Hanhong Gao | Wednesday, November 11, 11:50 AM MST | Salt Palace, Level 1, Grand Ballroom ACE
• BurritoBot Said Let’s Dance, the Platform Said No – Michael Forrester & Whitney Lee | Thursday, November 12, 1:50 PM MST | Salt Palace, Level 1, Grand Ballroom BDF

If you work with Kubernetes, attending KubeCon is a no-brainer. It’s where ideas, people, and open-source projects collide — and where you’ll probably learn more in three days than in three months online.

• See what’s next – From new CNCF projects to emerging platform patterns, KubeCon gives you a front-row seat to where cloud-native is heading
• Learn from people actually doing the work – Real engineers sharing what broke, what scaled, and what they’d do differently next time
• Meet the humans behind the tools – Maintainers, contributors, vendors, platform teams — they’re all there. The hallway chats often turn into long-term connections (or GitHub PRs)
• Bring home ideas you can actually use – You’ll leave with fresh tactics for making your clusters faster, safer, and cheaper
• Be part of the community – KubeCon is the heartbeat of the ecosystem. Show up, share what you know, and help shape what’s next.

Your developers ship at AI speed. Your platform team still owns every guardrail between them and production, and that gap is where the pressure lands.

Drop by Booth #202 and we’ll show you how to close it, from day 1 provisioning to day 2 operations, without loosening a single control. Spacelift is a Silver Sponsor of KubeCon and the Platinum Sponsor of OpenTofu Day, so you’ll find us across both.

Whether you’re running Terraform, OpenTofu, or a mix of the two, you’ll see live demos of how Spacelift ties provisioning, configuration, and governance into one workflow. Bring your hardest infrastructure questions; our engineers are on-site all week.

OpenTofu Day takes over Grand Ballroom H on the afternoon of Monday, November 9. Catch OpenTofu maintainer Christian Mesh on Symbol Libraries at 5:15 PM, then find the Spacelift team afterward to talk through your migration questions and swap notes with other OpenTofu users.

We’re also bringing the IaCConf energy to Salt Lake City. Join us for IaCConf Connect on Monday, November 9 from 6:00 PM at Bad Caddy Golf, minutes from the Salt Palace. Right after the first day of KubeCon, we’re hosting an evening of food, drinks, and sports simulators with fellow infrastructure-as-code pros. Mingle with people who live and breathe IaC and swap stories about what’s really happening in the ecosystem. Whether you’re new to the scene or a seasoned pro, it’s the perfect way to unwind, connect, and kick off KubeCon week in style.

KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2025 will be the go-to event for anyone serious about Kubernetes, DevOps, and cloud-native scale. With co-located events like OpenTofu Day, attendees can dive deep into the tools driving infrastructure automation forward.

Missed KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2026? Don’t worry, we keep an up-to-date list of DevOps conferences and events – there’s something happening somewhere almost every week. In the meantime, check out IaCConf, the first community-driven virtual IaC conference that we’re hosting!