KubeCon Showed Kubernetes Is Big, but Is It a Unicorn?

The recent KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America event was eye opening. Sure, I have attended the show in the past, but the reported 12,000 attendees was 50% more than the event hosted last year and showed that Kubernetes hysteria has not waned. But, did the event also highlight just how unique Kubernetes is among its cloud native peers? First of all, the Kubernetes-focused KubeCon event was huge. I have no standing to dispute the Cloud Native Computing Foundation’s (CNCF) reported numbers for the show, mostly because I can’t count that high, but the packed events I did attend at the event definitely showed it was “at capacity.” It wasn’t quite too big, but it’s definitely trending toward becoming an event that might need some sort of logistical change in order to maintain a sense of order.