As cloud native architectures span more clusters, services, and trust domains, identity and access management have become foundational infrastructure rather than an application-level concern. At the same time, emerging patterns such as multi-cluster platforms, agent-based systems, and verifiable identity models are placing new pressure on traditional IAM approaches. KeycloakCon Europe 2026 provides a focused venue to explore how open, cloud native identity solutions can evolve to meet these challenges in practice.
Created in response to the expanding scope of IAM responsibilities in modern distributed systems, this co-located event brings together practitioners, maintainers, and industry leaders to address real-world challenges. As workloads increasingly span clusters, trust domains, and new interaction models enabled by emerging protocols, the community benefits from a dedicated space to share patterns, pitfalls, and progress.
Who will get the most out of attending this event?
Platform engineers, security engineers, and practitioners operating cloud native workloads in production will benefit most from attending. The program includes advanced sessions such as Airgap-native Identity Management, alongside practical talks like The Keycloak-Token-Configuration Mistake and How To Avoid It, offering value across experience levels.
Open source contributors and maintainers will also find opportunities to exchange ideas and align on future direction. Attendees who already work with Kubernetes or distributed systems and want to deepen their understanding of authentication, authorization, and identity patterns will gain practical insight they can apply immediately.
What is new and different this year?
KeycloakCon Europe focuses deeply on identity, authentication, and authorization as core cloud native building blocks rather than as supporting features. The program explores emerging areas such as workload identity, agent-to-agent interactions, and verifiable credentials, including sessions like Model Context Protocol (MCP) Authorization for Enterprise Use Case, Bridging the Gap Between Human and Workload Identity with SPIFFE, and Keycloak and EUDI-Wallet: A Match Made in Heaven.
The event remains grounded in practical, implementation-focused content, including real-world case studies such as Securing Multi-Tenant SaaS Platforms With Keycloak. The single-track format ensures a shared experience, creating depth without fragmentation and supporting both foundational learning and advanced architectural discussions.
What will the day look like?
KeycloakCon Europe is a half-day, single-track co-located event as part of KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2026. The program is structured as a sequence of talks that move from foundational concepts and project updates to production case studies and forward-looking topics such as workload identity, digital identity wallets, and agent-based interactions.
Sessions are delivered by maintainers, industry leaders, and practitioners. The structure allows attendees to build context throughout the day while creating space for conversation and community exchange within a focused setting.
Should I do any homework first?
A general familiarity with Kubernetes, cloud native architectures, and basic authentication concepts such as OAuth 2.0 or OpenID Connect is helpful. However, the event is designed to be accessible to attendees with varying levels of experience.
Whether you are building foundational IAM knowledge or exploring advanced, large-scale identity architectures, the sessions are structured to provide practical examples and clear explanations that connect theory to implementation.
Find your community!
KeycloakCon Europe creates a dedicated space for open discussion, collaboration, and knowledge exchange around cloud native identity and access management. By bringing together users and maintainers, it helps align real-world needs with open source development and encourages long-term community contribution.
Identity, authentication, and authorization are fundamental security primitives in distributed systems. As AI-driven and agent-based workloads become more common, identity models must evolve to support non-human actors and autonomous interactions. This event connects those emerging challenges to practical, community-driven solutions, strengthening collaboration and shaping the future of the Keycloak open source community.
Don’t forget to register for KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2026.