I haven&#x27;t been to any of the other conferences mentioned above but I attended CCC four times so far (twice as a speaker).<p>For me, one the most striking and pleasant things of the CCC is that it&#x27;s organized ENTIRELY by volunteers and financed by entrance&#x2F;membership fees (as far as I know) so there is NOT ONE commercial sponsor to be found. I really really value this highly because today there are almost no places left that commerce&#x2F;business hasn&#x27;t invaded yet (most IT conferences feel like marketing events of FB&#x2F;Google&#x2F;Microsoft&#x2F;...)<p>I haven&#x27;t seen many (any?) conferences &#x2F; congresses of this scale that are organized like this (the Burning man might be an example of a similar event, not sure how they finance it though).<p>And of course the people are amazing and very friendly, and it&#x27;s a safe space to really be yourself. Also, they really try everything they can to make everyone feel at home, there&#x27;s even an entire floor dedicated to children (with projects, games, workshops, theather, ...) and one day dedicated especially to young hackers. Where else can you find this kind of stuff?