CNCF’s Helm Project Remains Fully Open Source and Unaffected by Recent Vendor Deprecations

Posted on September 24, 2025 by Chris Aniszczyk (CTO, CNCF) and Matt Butcher (Helm Co-Creator) Recently, users may have seen the news about Broadcom (Bitnami) regarding upcoming deprecations of their publicly available container images and Helm Charts. These changes, which will take effect by September 29, 2025 , mark a shift to a paid subscription model for Bitnami Secure Images and the removal of many free-to-use artifacts from public registries. We want to be clear: these changes do not impact the Helm project itself. Helm is a graduated project that will remain under the CNCF. It continues to be fully open source, Apache 2.0 licensed, and governed by a neutral community. The CNCF community retains ownership of all project intellectual property per our IP policy , ensuring no single vendor can alter its open governance model. While “Helm charts” refer broadly to a packaging format that anyone can use to deploy applications on Kubernetes, Bitnami Helm Charts are a specific vendor-maintained implementation. Developed and maintained by the Bitnami team (now part of Broadcom), these charts are known for their ease of use, security features, and reliability. Bitnami’s decision to deprecate its public chart and image repositories is entirely separate from the Helm project itself. Users currently depending on Bitnami Helm Charts should begin exploring migration or mirroring strategies to avoid potential disruption. The Helm community is actively working to support users during this transition, including guidance on: Updating chart dependencies Exploring alternative chart sources Migrating to maintained open image repositories We encourage users to follow the Helm blog and Helm GitHub for updates and support resources. CNCF remains committed to maintaining the integrity of our open source projects and supporting communities through transitions like this.