Which security conferences do you recommend?

Every once in a while i am asked which security conference I recommend to attend, so I thought I would try to create a little guide that can help guide your decisions. I am somewhat biased, but feel free to take the principals here and rework the results based on your own data.

Ranking

You can find a lot of information in the online google spread sheet maintained by Inbar Raz

These ranking are based on my own personal experience, and the ranking is hugely biased toward my prefrences.

Event	Location	Type	Cost	Size
	Finland	Technical	1337 Euros	Small
	Israel	Technical/Community	Free	Medium
	Israel	Technical	Free (but need to think ahead to get tickets)	Medium
	USA	Community	?	Small
	USA	Technical/Community	Free (but need to think ahead to get tickets)	Large
	Germany	Technical/Community	150 Euros	Huge
	USA	Technical/Community	300 USD	Huge
	France	Technical	?	Medium
	UK	Technical	Medium	Medium
	Chainging	Technical	?	Medium
	Israel	Community	Free	Medium
	USA	Commercial	2500 USD	Huge
	USA	Commercial	2500 USD	Huge

Constraints

1. Is someone paying me to travel? flights, hotels, etc.
2. How expensive is the event?
3. do I wnat to focus more on industry trends, technical topics or have great conversations?
4. How far from home am I willing to travel, and for how long?

Cost

• Free - as in not paying to attend
• Low - Under 200$, something reasonable to pay out of my personal pocket
• Medium - under 1000$, I should probably get someone to cover this
• High - more than a 1000$ - Should only do this on your own money if you’re hard-core

Type

• Commercial - for sales pitches, swag and networking (maybe some industry reconicesnce?)
• Techincal - for a deeper dive into your respective domain
• Community - networking, learning of other fields and having great conversations

Size

• Small - under 250 people
• Medium - under 1500 people
• Large - under 5000 people
• Huge - over 5000 people