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Codegarden 2018 Recap

Unicorns, a flipped car, bingo, beer, and a lot of developers.

That’s roughly what I had heard about Umbraco’s Codegarden before attending for the first time in 2018.

Codegarden 2018 ran from May 23–25, and it was my first time there — and definitely not my last.

If you don’t know what Umbraco or Codegarden is, here’s a quick intro.

Umbraco

Umbraco is a content management system (CMS) headquartered in Odense, Denmark.

I’ve worked with a range of CMS platforms, and one thing that stood out about Umbraco early on was how much attention they’ve put into the day-to-day editor experience — for content teams, not just developers.

Codegarden

Codegarden is the largest (and only official) Umbraco conference, organized by Umbraco HQ.

And if you’re thinking “classic conference,” you should reset your expectations.

It’s closer to a festival with a strong professional core: talks, workshops, community events, and social traditions like the infamous Bingo Night, a boat trip, and (in 2018) even a concert.

It’s also where major Umbraco announcements are often revealed — and 2018 was no exception.

Umbraco 8 preview

One of the early highlights was a preview of Umbraco 8.

Version 8 had been in the works for a long time, with a lot of effort going into cleaning up legacy code, improving stability, and introducing new functionality (including improvements for multi-language setups).

At the time, it still felt like there was some distance to a version you’d run across many client sites — but the direction was clear.

Umbraco Headless preview

The biggest theme that year was headless CMS.

Umbraco’s headless initiative aimed to decouple backend and frontend, enabling more flexible architectures and omnichannel delivery.

This wasn’t headless “as a buzzword.” It was headless as a practical response to how digital products were evolving.

Headless, bots, and AI

One talk touched on how headless architectures make it easier to reuse content and capabilities across surfaces — including bots.

Bots were already trending at the time. Some useful, some very “dumb.”

But the argument was clear: when bots start incorporating real AI and intent understanding, the architecture beneath them matters.

Frontend performance (and “dirty tricks”)

Vitaly Friedman delivered a great session on frontend performance — and how small techniques can improve perceived speed and user experience long before everything is fully loaded.

It was well structured, practical, and genuinely entertaining. I left with a lot of takeaways.

Why are we even here?

Umbraco HQ cares deeply about work joy and meaning.

That year they invited Alexander Kjerulf to talk about the purpose of work — and how “a good life” isn’t only about your own happiness.

When you build digital products for other people, even small improvements can make someone else’s day easier.

It’s a surprisingly motivating lens.

Preparty and afterparties

You can’t say Codegarden without the social side.

Tuesday started with a preparty at Umbraco HQ.

Wednesday included the traditional boat trip and networking with people from all over the world.

Thursday featured Bingo Night (which you don’t really explain — you experience it) and a proper party.

See you at Codegarden 2019

My first Codegarden was a genuinely great experience.

I’m not a developer, but I work with Umbraco every day and spend a lot of time shipping websites and growth projects where CMS decisions matter.

I got a lot out of it — and I was already looking forward to Codegarden 2019.

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