Helm, the package manager that provides an easy way to find, share, and use software built for Kubernetes, has released its third major update with Helm 3.
The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), announced that Helm 3 builds on the core features of Helm 2. It also features improvements to chart repositories, release management, security, and library charts. With this release, the Helm maintainers incorporated feedback and requests from the community to better address the needs of Kubernetes users and the broad cloud native ecosystem.
Last week, third party security firm Cure53 completed their open source security audit of Helm 3. The firm commended Helm’s mature focus on security and concluded that Helm 3 is “recommended for public deployment.”
Helm uses a packaging format called charts, which are collections of files describing a related set of Kubernetes resources. These charts can then be packaged into versioned archives to be deployed. Helm 2 defined a workflow for creating, installing, and managing these charts. Helm 3 builds upon that workflow, changing the underlying infrastructure to reflect the needs of the community as they change and evolve.
Helm’s next phase of development will see new features targeted toward stability and enhancements to existing features.