FOSDEM

What FOSDEM does

FOSDEM is a non-commercial, volunteer-organized annual conference for the free and open source software (FOSS) community, held over two days at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) Solbosch Campus in Brussels, Belgium. Founded in 2000 by Raphael Bauduin originally as OSDEM and renamed FOSDEM (Free and Open Source Software Developers' European Meeting) in 2001, the event is operated by FOSDEM vzw, a Belgian non-profit association. The 2026 edition hosted 8,000+ attendees, 1,216 speakers, 1,079 events across 71 tracks and 65+ developer rooms spanning topics from AI and containers to databases, security, and programming languages, alongside stands, Birds of a Feather (BOF) sessions, and lightning talks. Supporting offerings include the FOSDEM Video Archive, schedule data exports in Pentabarf XML/iCal/xCal formats, third-party mobile applications, FOSDEM Junior workshops for children aged 7-17, FOSDEM Fringe community events, and the FOSDEM Treasure Hunt challenge.

FOSDEM is free to attend, requires no registration, and is funded entirely by corporate sponsorships, t-shirt sales, and donations. The 2026 sponsor roster includes Google, Red Hat, Arm, CNCF & OpenInfra, SAP, Mozilla, Grafana Labs, Eclipse Foundation, Codethink, Colt, Dstny, Element, LMAX Group, Percona, UpCloud, and Zabbix, with ULB serving as the core venue partner. A roughly 30-person core volunteer team coordinates the event year-round via mailing lists, IRC (#fosdem-volunteers on Libera.Chat), and Matrix channels; during the conference weekend, additional volunteers assist with on-site operations. The organization owns no proprietary technology product — its technology footprint consists of the public website (fosdem.org), live streaming infrastructure (live.fosdem.org), the video archive (video.fosdem.org), and Pentabarf-based scheduling — and it has no formal API, no employees in the traditional sense, and no revenue disclosures.

From a commercial standpoint, FOSDEM is not a venture-backable business: it is a Belgian non-profit (vereniging zonder winstoogmerk) with no shareholders, no funding rounds, and no equity instruments. Its go-to-market is community-led — word-of-mouth, mailing lists, social media, and 25 years of brand reputation — with no sales motion and no paid acquisition. The primary "customers" are sponsors seeking visibility with the European FOSS developer community and attendees who consume content either in person or via live streams and recorded video.

Name

FOSDEM

Legal name

FOSDEM vzw

Website

https://fosdem.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2000

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

FOSDEM is a volunteer-run, non-commercial annual conference for the free and open source software community, held free of charge at ULB Solbosch Campus in Brussels. The 2026 edition drew 8,000+ attendees and 1,216 speakers across 65+ developer rooms, funded by corporate sponsors and donations.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Technology Conference / Open Source Developer Event

NAICS

Business Associations (813910), Religious, Grantmaking, Civic, Professional, and Similar Organizations (813), Convention and Trade Show Organizers (561920)

SIC

Services-Membership Organizations (8600)

akta.pro primary industry

Association & Society Conference Management (Nonprofit, Professional Bodies) (THAHACAA)

akta.pro secondary industry

Academic & Education Conference Organizers (THAHACAE)

Keywords

• Open source conference
• Software developer event
• Free software meetup
• Community technology gathering
• Annual developer summit

Headquarters

HQ city

Ixelles

HQ country

Belgium

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Operations, Infrastructure, Technology or R&D, Personnel, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Sponsorships: Corporate sponsors fund the event by paying for visibility at the conference. Major sponsors include Google, Red Hat, Arm, CNCF, Mozilla, SAP, and others.
2. T-shirt sales: FOSDEM sells t-shirts during the event as a secondary funding source.
3. Donations: FOSDEM gratefully accepts donations from attendees and supporters.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

FOSDEM organizes a free, non-commercial two-day annual conference at the ULB Solbosch campus in Brussels, Belgium, featuring main tracks, 65+ developer rooms, stands, Birds of a Feather sessions, and lightning talks focused on free and open source software. The event is run entirely by volunteers and supported by corporate sponsors, offering attendees direct access to project leaders and maintainers from the global FOSS ecosystem.

Product overview

FOSDEM is a free, non-commercial two-day event organized by volunteers at the ULB Solbosch campus in Brussels, Belgium, to promote the widespread use of free and open source software. The core offering is the FOSDEM Conference itself, featuring main tracks, 65+ developer rooms covering diverse topics (AI, containers, databases, security, programming languages, etc.), stands for project presentations, BOFs (Birds of a Feather sessions), and lightning talks. Supporting offerings include the FOSDEM Video Archive for recorded talks, Mobile Applications for schedule access, Schedule Data Exports in XML/iCal formats for programmatic use, FOSDEM Junior for children's workshops, FOSDEM Fringe for adjacent community events, and the annual FOSDEM Treasure Hunt.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• FOSDEM Conference A free, non-commercial two-day event held annually at the ULB Solbosch campus in Brussels, Belgium, offering main tracks, 65+ developer rooms, stands, BOFs, and lightning talks on free and open source software. Targeted at FOSS developers, contributors, project maintainers, and enthusiasts.
• FOSDEM Video Archive
• FOSDEM Junior
• FOSDEM Fringe
• FOSDEM Treasure Hunt

Quantifiable outcome

• 8000+ attendees annually
• +2 more outcomes

Segments2 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Partnerships

17 partnerships are on record, tiered major, supporting and core.

• GooglemajorOthers · 31 January 2026Major corporate sponsor of FOSDEM 2026. Provides financial support to help fund the conference operations and venue.
• Red HatmajorOthers · 31 January 2026Major corporate sponsor of FOSDEM 2026. Red Hat supports the FOSS community conference as part of its open source advocacy.
• ArmmajorTechnology or Integration · 31 January 2026Corporate sponsor supporting FOSDEM 2026. Arm supports open source software development and ecosystem growth.
• CNCF & OpenInframajorTechnology or Integration · 31 January 2026Joint sponsor representing cloud-native and open infrastructure foundations. Supports the FOSS ecosystem through conference sponsorship.
• CodethinksupportingOthers · 31 January 2026Corporate sponsor of FOSDEM 2026.
• ColtsupportingOthers · 31 January 2026Corporate sponsor of FOSDEM 2026.
• DstnysupportingOthers · 31 January 2026Corporate sponsor of FOSDEM 2026.
• Eclipse FoundationmajorTechnology or Integration · 31 January 2026Major sponsor representing a major open source foundation. Eclipse Foundation supports the FOSS ecosystem.
• ElementsupportingTechnology or Integration · 31 January 2026Corporate sponsor of FOSDEM 2026. Element develops the Matrix-based Element messaging platform.
• Grafana LabsmajorTechnology or Integration · 31 January 2026Corporate sponsor of FOSDEM 2026. Grafana Labs provides observability and monitoring tools for the open source community.
• LMAX GroupsupportingOthers · 31 January 2026Corporate sponsor of FOSDEM 2026.
• MozillamajorTechnology or Integration · 31 January 2026Major sponsor supporting open source. Mozilla Foundation advocates for an open internet and supports FOSS projects.
• PerconasupportingTechnology or Integration · 31 January 2026Corporate sponsor of FOSDEM 2026. Percona provides open source database solutions.
• SAPmajorOthers · 31 January 2026Major corporate sponsor of FOSDEM 2026. SAP supports open source software and ecosystem development.
• Université Libre de BruxellescoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 31 January 2026Host institution providing the Solbosch Campus venue for FOSDEM. ULB is essential to FOSDEM's operations as the physical venue provider.
• UpCloudsupportingOthers · 31 January 2026Corporate sponsor of FOSDEM 2026.
• ZabbixsupportingTechnology or Integration · 31 January 2026Corporate sponsor of FOSDEM 2026. Zabbix provides open source monitoring solutions.

Scale indicators7 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Direct peers

• PyCon: The Python community's annual conference, structurally similar to FOSDEM: volunteer-organized, multi-track, free or low-cost community gathering with sponsorships as the primary funding mechanism and a strong educational/devroom format.
• DebConf: The annual Debian project conference, comparable to FOSDEM as a volunteer-organized, free-to-attend, sponsor-funded gathering of an open source project community with devroom/talk-based programming.
• FOSSCON: A free, community-organized FOSS conference in the US with comparable structure to FOSDEM: free admission, multi-track talks, volunteer-driven, and sponsor-funded.
• DevConf: A community-run FOSS conference series with editions in Czech Republic and elsewhere, directly comparable to FOSDEM in volunteer-driven model, free admission, and multi-track developer-room format.
• KubeCon + CloudNativeCon: CNCF's flagship open source conference series, directly comparable to FOSDEM as a large-scale, community-driven FOSS event. Both serve developer communities with multi-track, multi-sponsor programs, though KubeCon is professionally produced and ticketed.
• EuroPython: Europe's main Python community conference, directly comparable as a volunteer-organized, European-based developer conference with sponsorship-funded, multi-track programming — though ticket-paid.
• Open Source Summit (Linux Foundation): Linux Foundation's flagship open source event, comparable to FOSDEM in audience (FOSS developers, project maintainers) and sponsor mix (enterprise vendors, foundations), though run as a paid, professionally-produced conference.
• LibrePlanet (Free Software Foundation): FSF's annual conference for the free software community, comparable in ethos, volunteer organization, and free-admission community-gathering model, though smaller in scale than FOSDEM.

Broad incumbents

• GitHub Universe: GitHub's flagship annual developer conference, comparable to FOSDEM as a large-scale developer gathering, but commercially produced, paid, and centered on a single platform's ecosystem rather than a horizontal community.

Emerging players

• Chaos Communication Congress (CCC): Europe's largest hacker conference, comparable to FOSDEM as a community-driven, European FOSS-adjacent gathering, but more focused on security/hacker culture and ticketed with a different sponsorship model.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles3 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about FOSDEM