The Maximo Community in 2026: IBM Champions, Open Source Contributors, Labs, and Where Practitioners Actually Help Each Other
The Maximo Community Is Bigger Than You Think
If you are new to Maximo, you might think it is just an IBM product with a documentation site and a support portal. That is wrong. The Maximo community is one of the most active enterprise software communities in the world, and it spans IBM employees, IBM Champions, partner firms, open source contributors, and tens of thousands of practitioners running Maximo in production.
This article maps the Maximo community as of mid-2026. It is a directory of the people, projects, and forums that matter, and a guide for how to get value from the community (and how to give back).
IBM Champions: The Heart of the Community
The IBM Champion program recognizes external experts who are passionate about IBM technology and who make significant contributions to the community. Maximo has one of the largest IBM Champion cohorts of any IBM product, with dozens of active Champions across the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa.
IBM Champions are not IBM employees. They are practitioners, consultants, partner firm employees, academics, and community organizers who have demonstrated deep expertise and a commitment to sharing that expertise publicly.
What Champions Do
IBM Champions contribute in many ways. The most common contributions include:
- Writing and speaking. Champions publish blog posts, write articles, speak at conferences (IBM Think, MaximoWorld, MEA, regional user groups), and produce video content. The best Maximo content on the internet comes from Champions, not from IBM marketing.
- Open source projects. Many Champions maintain open source tools, scripts, and integrations for Maximo. The Maximo community has a rich open source ecosystem precisely because Champions invest their own time in building and maintaining it.
- Community moderation. Champions moderate forums, answer questions, and curate resources for new practitioners. The most active forums are run primarily by Champions, not by IBM employees.
- Beta testing and feedback. Champions are often early access participants for new MAS releases and provide feedback to IBM product management. The Champion program is a real feedback channel into IBM, not a marketing exercise.
- Mentoring. Champions mentor newer practitioners, especially those getting started with Maximo careers. The community is welcoming to newcomers who ask good questions and show willingness to learn.
Champions to Follow
The Champion community is large, but a few Champions stand out for the consistency and quality of their contributions. This is not an exhaustive list; it is a starting point.
Biplab Das Choudhury (Valueztech, India). Founder and CEO of Valueztech, Biplab is one of the most active Maximo Champions globally. He maintains the "All Things Maximo" monthly newsletter on LinkedIn, which has become the de facto community pulse for what is happening in the Maximo ecosystem. He also maintains the Valueztech YouTube channel with technical walkthroughs and the Valueztech GitHub organization with open source Maximo tools. In 2026, he released a free AI-assisted installer for MAS on Single Node OpenShift, co-created with Claude Code, that dramatically simplifies the install process for practitioners. Bruno Portaluri (Italy). A long-time Maximo Champion and frequent speaker at MaximoWorld and IBM Think. Bruno specializes in Maximo Mobile, MAS migrations, and Italian/European user group organization. Richard Dilek (Australia). Champion focused on Maximo Spatial, linear asset management, and GIS integrations. Richard is particularly active in the Australian Maximo community and frequently publishes integration patterns for Esri ArcGIS + Maximo. Mayur Sojitra, Margi Shah, and the IBM Maximo Labs team. While technically IBM employees (Champions are external, but some IBM employees contribute heavily to community content), the IBM Maximo Labs team maintains the official Maximo Labs GitHub organization and produces hands-on technical labs that are the most practical learning resource for MAS.
Open Source Projects Worth Knowing
The Maximo community has a substantial open source ecosystem. Some of it is in the official IBM Maximo Labs GitHub organization; much of it is in personal and partner firm repositories. A few projects are essential to know about.
IBM Maximo Labs (ibm.github.io/maximo-labs)
The official IBM Maximo Labs site hosts dozens of hands-on technical labs covering MAS 9.0, 9.1, and 9.2. The labs are organized by application (Manage, Monitor, Predict, Mobile, Visual Inspection) and by topic (installation, configuration, integration, AI/ML). Each lab includes a step-by-step guide, sample data, and configuration scripts.
The labs are the most reliable, up-to-date learning resource for MAS. New releases typically come with new labs covering the new features. If you are learning MAS, start here.
Valueztech MAS SNO AWS Installer
Released in April 2026, this is an open source installer for IBM Maximo Application Suite on Single Node OpenShift (SNO) on AWS. It was built by Biplab Das Choudhury and his team at Valueztech, with significant help from Claude Code as a pair-programming partner.
The installer addresses a real pain point: the standard MAS install process is complex, error-prone, and poorly documented. The Valueztech installer distills months of real-world install experience into a single, repeatable, well-tested script. It is free, open source, and designed for consultants, architects, and practitioners who want a working MAS environment quickly.
Valueztech Maximo Analytics
Also released in 2026, Maximo Analytics is a free early access tool that uses AI to interpret Maximo error messages and provide step-by-step fixes grounded in official IBM documentation and community knowledge. It is the kind of tool every developer and operations team has been asking for: when an error pops up, click on it, get a contextual fix.
Naviam DataStudio
Naviam, a long-time Maximo partner, contributes a number of open source utilities for Maximo data management. DataStudio is their data preparation and bulk load tool, designed to help organizations cleanse, map, and bulk-load data into Maximo for AI/ML use cases. The tool is free for evaluation and significantly lowers the barrier to building clean training datasets for Maximo Predict.
Interloc Solutions Tools
Interloc Solutions, another major Maximo partner, contributes open source tools and utilities through their blog and GitHub presence. Their content on Maximo AI/ML model deployment and pmlib usage is particularly valuable for practitioners building custom predictive models.
The Forums: Where Practitioners Actually Talk
There are three primary forums where Maximo practitioners exchange knowledge. Each has a different culture and a different role in the community.
moremaximo.com (formerly Maximo Open Forum)
`moremaximo.com` is the largest and most active Maximo forum. It is run by Naviam and has been the de facto community forum for over a decade. The forum has thousands of registered users, and new questions are posted daily. Recent example topics (as of June 2026) include:
- "rhm-data-service pod error on mas install - single node"
- "Meter-based PMs issue"
- "Ability to configure Sequencing in an ALN Domain"
- "MAS Integration"
- "Maximo Mobile Attachment Heapdump issue"
The forum is moderated by community volunteers, with Naviam providing the platform. The signal-to-noise ratio is high; most questions get thoughtful answers from experienced practitioners within hours.
IBM Community Forums (community.ibm.com)
The official IBM forums for Maximo are hosted on the IBM Community site. These are more focused on officially supported configurations and are monitored by IBM employees. They are a good place to ask questions about documented features and to get clarification on IBM's official position on various topics.
The IBM Community forums are slower than moremaximo.com for community-to-community questions, but they are the right place for questions that need an official IBM response.
Reddit, Stack Overflow, and Discord
The Maximo presence on these platforms is smaller but growing. The Maximo subreddit is occasionally active with practitioners asking questions and sharing experiences. Stack Overflow has a long tail of Maximo questions that are useful for specific technical issues. The Maximo Discord server (run by community volunteers) is a real-time chat option that has grown significantly in the last two years.
Maximo User Groups (MUGs)
Regional Maximo User Groups are organized in many countries and major cities. These are in-person (or hybrid) meetups where practitioners share experiences, hear from IBM product managers, and network. MUGs are typically free or low-cost and are great for meeting other practitioners in your area.
The major MUGs include:
- MaximoWorld. The largest Maximo conference in North America, held annually. Includes technical sessions, partner showcases, and an IBM product roadmap update. This is the most important Maximo event in the Americas.
- MEA (Maximo European Association). The European Maximo conference, held annually in a rotating European city. Strong technical content and a great way to meet the European Maximo community.
- MUGs by region. Most major cities and countries have a local MUG. Search for "Maximo User Group" plus your region to find one.
How to Get Value from the Community
Being a member of the Maximo community is a net positive for your career and for your Maximo implementations, but only if you engage actively. Here are the patterns that work.
1. Search Before You Ask
The Maximo community has been answering questions for 20+ years. There is a very high chance that the question you are about to ask has been answered before. Use the forum search, Google, and the Maximo Labs site before posting. When you do post, link to what you found and explain why it did not answer your question.
2. Provide Context
When you ask a question, include:
- MAS version (9.0, 9.1, 9.2 with the patch level)
- Deployment model (on-prem, cloud, SaaS, OpenShift, traditional)
- What you tried, with specific error messages
- What you expected vs. what happened
- Relevant configuration (screenshots are better than text)
The community is far more likely to help when the question is well-formed and shows that the asker has done some homework.
3. Answer Questions
The fastest way to learn Maximo is to answer other people's questions. Even if you are not sure of the answer, doing the research to find it teaches you more than passively reading. The community rewards people who contribute answers, and over time you build a reputation that pays back many times.
4. Share Your Work
If you build something useful (an Automation Script, an integration, a custom application, a tool), share it. Blog about it, post it on GitHub, write it up for the Maximo Insider. The community has a strong norm of attribution and a willingness to help contributors who share.
5. Attend Conferences
MaximoWorld and MEA are the two big conferences, but regional MUGs and IBM Think are also valuable. Conferences are where you meet the people whose blog posts you read, where you learn about features before they are announced, and where you build the relationships that make the rest of the community work.
