Recap: TYPO3camp Hamburg 2025

Fresh energy in a familiar place: In 2025, the TYPO3 community once again gathered for #t3chh25 in the light-filled rooms of BMK Hamburg – and of course, we at F7 were right in the middle of it all.

With ten colleagues, plenty of curiosity, and a good dose of enthusiasm for conversation, we attended TYPO3camp Hamburg 2025 as a Gold Sponsor. We didn’t just take part in exciting sessions – we also brought back our now legendary F7 Candy Bar, set up right between check-in and coffee. Because sharing knowledge is great, but a little sugar sometimes helps with thinking.

In this article, our colleagues share their personal highlights, sessions, learnings, and impressions from TYPO3camp Hamburg 2025 – compact, subjective, and straight from the source.

We’d also like to take the opportunity to congratulate Lukas on passing the TYPO3 CMS Certified Editor (TCCE) exam, Trish on becoming a TYPO3 CMS Certified Developer (TCCD), and Jan on earning the TYPO3 CMS Certified Consultant (TCCC) certification.
With that, our collection of certifications continues to grow:

• 4× TCCE (Editors)
• 2× TCCI (Integrators)
• 3× TCCD (Developers)
• 2× TCCC (Consultants)

We’re proud of our TYPO3 expertise and look forward to continuing to share this knowledge actively within the community and our projects.

Our Highlights

Simon, Product Owner Team Voyager 

The session Walk the Board by Thomas Esders (Leuchtfeuer) was definitely a highlight for me as a Product Owner because I was able to take away something to try out right away. Since my team has been working agilely with Scrum, the classic daily with the three questions has become part of our routine. Just as reliably, the question comes up at least once a year in a retro: how can we make our dailies more efficient again? Too often, we slip into status updates or even justifications – instead of focusing on real collaboration.

Walk the Board addresses exactly this: instead of reporting in turns, the team walks through the board together – starting with the most important ticket, the one closest to release. The key question is: what do we need to do to move forward here? > This shifts the focus away from individual reports towards real teamwork – and helps deliver results faster that you can grow from together.

In the spirit of agile work, I’d say: let’s give it a try!

Kevin, Backend Developer Team Sputnik 

As always, the TYPO3camp Hamburg provided a great opportunity for professional exchange and networking. The open dialogue about shared challenges and technical developments, in particular, offered impulses that continue to resonate well beyond the camp.

A central topic was already addressed in the keynote by Jeffrey Alexander McGuire: the digital sovereignty of Europe. Many of the services we use are already European – from hosting, which often takes place in Hamburg, to the open-source CMS TYPO3, to tools like Usercentrics and FriendlyCaptcha (both from the Munich area). To ensure data protection compliance, visitor statistics are also collected using self-hosted Matomo instances. Nevertheless, dependencies remain – for example, with video integration via YouTube, the use of social feeds, or collaborative work tools from the US. That makes it all the more important to have a stronger offering of European alternatives – and to consciously choose them. Why this topic concerns all of us will be explored in more detail in a separate article (coming soon).

Marc, Backend Developer Team Voyager 

It's hard for me to pick a single highlight from this year's TYPO3camp Hamburg because there were so many great moments!

Together with the TYPO3 Education Committee, we worked hard over the past few months on adapting the certification exam to version 13. In Hamburg, we launched the new version. That was a bit exciting!

From a technical perspective, the updates to Fluid with the new Components feature and the related sessions by Simon Praetorius were very interesting.

The two sessions I offered – TYPO3 Security and TYPO3 Certifications – were well received, and I’m happy about the positive feedback.

And of course, I met many familiar faces from the TYPO3 community again – and made new contacts as well.

But okay – if I had to choose: besides two other colleagues, our trainee Lukas passed his certification exam at the camp. That really made me especially happy!

Jan, Backend Developer Team Apollo 

For me as a backend developer, the highlight this year was the talk by Christian “Lolli” Kuhn about refactoring, using the TYPO3 core as an example. Christian has worked in various areas of the core for years and continues to revise the system's foundation. This brings both noticeable performance boosts and improved accessibility of the core for new features and custom developments.

The core question of the talk was whether it is better to revise existing code or to throw it away and rewrite it. It became clear that a well-planned and test-covered revision usually delivers better results. In contrast, with completely new code, there’s always the risk of introducing regressions or unintentionally omitting existing features.

Additionally, I took away for our frontend crew that the new version of Fluid (TYPO3’s template engine) introduces Components, which enables true atomic design without third-party extensions. And finally, we now have typed variables.

Trish, Backend Developer Team Voyager

Alongside reconnecting with old friends and meeting new ones, engaging in technically and personally meaningful conversations, and of course enjoying the incredibly good food, the TYPO3camp Hamburg 2025 was once again a truly well-rounded experience. At this point, a big thank-you goes out to the organizing team for your effort!

My personal highlight as a TYPO3 backend developer was the exchange on the topic Refactoring the TYPO3 Core, where Lolli took us on a mental journey exploring how to modernize historically grown, massive classes deep in the TYPO3 core – and how (and why) one should resist the urge to just throw everything away and start anew. We discussed the pros and cons of rewriting versus refactoring, also considering what remains of the time and effort if, due to time constraints or other reasons, the task must be abandoned after weeks, months, or even years.

An interesting side note during the session was that Lolli hasn't developed any new features freely for the TYPO3 core for years, because he's constantly busy refactoring and cleaning up old structures and historical monoliths. Yet his work forms the foundation for many others to be inspired by new interfaces and capabilities.

Jane, Backend Editor Team Contentshop

This year was my first time at the TYPO3camp Hamburg, together with a colleague – and honestly, I was quite intimidated by the technical jargon and depth of some sessions. Especially in conversations with experienced participants, I initially felt more like a quiet observer. So I was all the more surprised at how much knowledge was shared casually over coffee at the breakfast table: between a sandwich and small talk, Anja Leichsenring spontaneously and clearly explained the basics of Fluid to me – including visual aids using an old school poster on the wall. Suddenly, the question mark in my head disappeared.
My conclusion: TYPO3camp Hamburg thrives on community. It’s not about collecting as many contacts as possible for some platform, but about genuine exchange. Knowledge isn’t hoarded here – it’s shared openly, directly, and on equal footing. That’s what open source is all about.

Sina, Backend Editor Team Contentshop

I’m still fairly new to the TYPO3 world and have only been working with it for about two months. So the camp was my first event and therefore also my first real insight into the community. What I found especially exciting was finally seeing how the system works in the backend and how everything fits together. And even though I couldn’t contribute to every technical conversation yet, it was truly impressive to experience the passion within the community. The relaxed atmosphere (and the good food!) definitely helped me feel welcome.

Claas, Management 

The keynote by Jeffrey A. "jam" McGuire titled “Power, Data Protection, Pragmatism and Digital Sovereignty” was a compelling talk in which he described Europe’s dependency on big tech companies from the US and discussed the growing importance of digital sovereignty in Europe. Open source technologies play a key role in this context.

Joachim, Management 

At the TYPO3camp Hamburg, I attended two exciting sessions that both gave me valuable input for my daily work. I particularly enjoyed the session “Daily – Walk the Board”, which focused on moving beyond the classic daily format with the three standard questions. Instead, the team shifts the focus to the actual work on tickets – starting with the most important one that’s closest to release. I found this shift in perspective – away from individual reports and toward real teamwork – very inspiring. The session “Better Remote Setup” was also practical and full of useful tips (e.g. the difference between home office and remote work, or communication rules via Slack).

In addition, I had many great conversations at the camp and an open, collegial exchange with other companies. One particularly interesting topic was how other agencies acquire new projects. One company reported that they stay consistently busy solely through their website – that impressed me. Other conversations focused on recruiting and growth: one example was a company that grew from 9 to 50 employees in just four years. The exchange with competitors about product portfolios was also interesting – for example, how they offer TYPO3, WordPress, and Magento in parallel and organize their teams accordingly (e.g. separate TYPO3 and WordPress teams).
All in all, the TYPO3camp Hamburg was a successful mix of hands-on sessions and valuable networking – I’m taking a lot of inspiration back into my daily work.

Conclusion

A heartfelt thank you to BMK Hamburg for the great location, to Volker, Matthias, Wolfgang, Anja, and the entire t3chh team for the smooth organization of TYPO3camp Hamburg – and of course to all participants for inspiring sessions, engaging conversations, and their unstoppable appetite for our Candy Bar.