TL;DR. Tonight (Thu 28 May): Google Cloud Meetup #36 at weXelerate, 17:30 [1]. This weekend (29-31 May): RubyConf Austria at Das MuTh, two U-Bahn stops from the centre [2][3]. The 2026 anchors are OWASP Global AppSec EU (Jun 22-26, Austria Center) [4], TEDAI Vienna at the Hofburg (Oct 28-30, Geoffrey Hinton on the bill) [13][14], and Cloud Native Days Austria (Sep 29-30) [11]. Year-round, ViennaJS meets the last Wednesday of every month [18]. Note: WeAreDevelopers World Congress, long Vienna’s flagship, is in Berlin in 2026 [17].
This week & weekend
| When | Event | Where | Format |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thu 28 May, 17:30 | Google Cloud Meetup #36 | weXelerate, Praterstraße 1, 1020 | Free; two talks (AI-agent memory, supply-chain attacks) [1] |
| Fri-Sun 29-31 May | RubyConf Austria 2026 | Das MuTh, Am Augartenspitz 1, 1020 | Vienna.rb meetup (Fri), conference (Sat), hike (Sun) [2][3] |
Both venues sit in the 2nd district (Leopoldstadt), a 10-minute walk apart and an easy add-on if your Michelin reservation is in the inner city.
2026 anchor conferences
The rest of the year clusters around three windows: late June (security), mid-to-late September (UX, AI, cloud-native), and late October-November (AI, innovation).
| Dates | Event | Venue | Focus | Cite |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 9-10 | Microsoft techConference 2026 | Messe Wien Exhibition Congress Centre | AI, security, cloud, quantum (Microsoft ecosystem) | [8] [9] |
| Jun 22-26 | OWASP Global AppSec EU 2026 | Austria Center Vienna | AppSec — 3 days training + 2 days conference | [4] [5] |
| Jun 26-27 | ThreatModCon 2026 Vienna | Meliá Vienna | Only conference dedicated to threat modeling | [6] [7] |
| Jun 29-Jul 3 | ESSAI 2026 (European Summer School AI) | Vienna (host TBA) | Intensive 5-day AI summer school | [19] |
| Sep 16-17 | uxcon vienna 2026 | University of Vienna | UX research & design — 600 UXers, 43 countries | [10] |
| Sep 18 | Future Builders (post-uxcon) | Vienna | 60 senior practitioners — design / eng / product | [10] |
| Sep 24 | AAIC – Applied AI Conference | WKÖ, Wiedner Hauptstrasse 63, 1045 | Austria’s flagship applied-AI business symposium | [12] |
| Sep 29-30 | Cloud Native Days Austria 2026 | Cineplexx Wienerberg, Wienerbergstraße 11 | K8s / CNCF — 4th edition (formerly KCD Austria) | [11] |
| Oct 28-30 | TEDAI Vienna 2026 | Hofburg imperial palace | 1,100+ guests, 20+ TED Talks, Hinton on stage | [13] [14] [15] |
| Nov 26 | Future Forward 2026 | weXelerate Innovation Hub | Innovation summit — 1,000+ attendees, 42 nations | [16] |
TEDAI is the priciest ticket on the list — Standard Pass €1,500 ex-VAT, Executive Track €2,500 [13]. OWASP and Cloud Native Days are community-priced; techConference is built around Microsoft partner training packages [9]. RubyConf Austria, ThreatModCon and uxcon sit in the mid-hundreds-of-euros band typical for two-day specialist conferences.
⚠ Not in Vienna in 2026: WeAreDevelopers World Congress moved to Berlin (Jul 8-10) — 15,000+ attendees, 500+ speakers [17]. 4GAMECHANGERS Festival is on a creative break, 2026 dates TBA [28]. European Forum Alpbach is in Alpbach (the village), not Vienna — don’t confuse the two.
Recurring meetups worth a calendar slot
Roughly twenty active dev/AI groups; these are the ones with the most consistent cadence and biggest turnouts.
| Group | Cadence | Topic | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| ViennaJS | Last Wednesday monthly | JavaScript (all frameworks) | Austria’s largest JS community; English; rotating venues [18] |
| AI Austria | Multiple events/month | GenAI, agents, ML in practice | Runs ESSAI, AAIC; GenAI Community sessions in 2026 [19] [20] |
| Vienna DevOps & Security | ~Monthly | DevOps + security | Hosted at ÖBB Open Innovation Factory, Lassallestraße 5 [21] |
| Cloud Native Computing Vienna | ~Monthly | K8s, CNCF, platform | Dev/ops/operator perspective [22] |
| PyData Vienna | ~Monthly | Python data, R, Julia | Standard PyData chapter format [23] |
| Vienna Data and AI Meetup | Regular | DS/DE/ML/AI | Sponsored by Accenture; project showcases + apéro [24] |
| Vienna AI Engineering | Regular | AI engineering (LLM ops, inference) | Originally “Vienna Spark Meetup” (2015), pivoted to AI [25] |
| Vienna Deep Learning | Monthly | DL / neural nets | Academia + industry speakers [26] |
| PyLadies Vienna | Workshops + sessions | Python (women-focused) | Listed in WeAreDevelopers’ meetup roundup [26] |
| React Vienna | Monthly | React | Midweek talks [26] |
| Vue.js Vienna | Monthly | Vue.js | Smaller, near city centre [26] |
| Vienna Data Engineering | Monthly | Data engineering | Two speakers + Q&A + drinks [26] |
Where things happen
Three venues account for most of the action:
- weXelerate — 9,000m² hub at Praterstraße 1, 1020 (Jean Nouvel building, 5 min from Schwedenplatz). Hosts Google Cloud Meetup, Future Forward, frequent AI/startup events [27].
- Austria Center Vienna (ACV) — the city’s big international congress centre; OWASP AppSec EU lives here [4].
- Messe Wien Exhibition Congress Centre — Microsoft techConference and other large IT trade events [9].
For the showpiece events, the Hofburg (TEDAI) [13] and Das MuTh (RubyConf) [3] both put you inside historic Vienna — the venue choice is part of the value, not just a hall.
How to find the rest
- dev.events Vienna tech listing — clean filter by topic and date [5].
- AI Austria event calendar — the densest single source for AI-flavoured events in 2026 (60+ entries Jun-Oct) [19].
- WeAreDevelopers Vienna meetup guide — useful curated list of recurring groups [26].