Broadcom to discontinue free Bitnami Helm charts

📢 Overview

As of August 28th, 2025, the Bitnami public catalog will undergo the following changes:

• Community catalog

  • Disable images generation for Debian-based images and gradually move existing ones to a Bitnami Legacy repository.
  • A focused set of more hardened, more secure images. These free images are intended for development and are only available on the “latest” tag. You can find them at https://hub.docker.com/u/bitnamisecure.
  • Helm charts and container images' open-source code will continue to be maintained up-to-date and accessible on GitHub under the Apache 2 license.

• Bitnami Secure Images

  • Production-ready, enterprise-grade containers and Helm charts will move under the Bitnami Secure Images offering.
  • Benefits include:
    • Hardened, low-attack-surface operating system
    • Continuous rebuilds with the latest security patches (SLSA Level 3)
    • Industry-standard CVE transparency (VEX, KEV)
    • SBOMs and compliance artifacts
    • Enterprise support and LTS branches
    • Access to the entire catalog of applications (over 280)
    • Minimal distroless runtime images

• Legacy repository migration

  • All existing container images, including older or versioned tags (e.g., 2.50.0, 10.6), will be moved from the public catalog (docker.io/bitnami) to the Bitnami Legacy repository (docker.io/bitnamilegacy). This legacy catalog will receive no further updates or support and should only be used for temporary migration purposes.
  • Suppose your deployed Helm chart is failing to pull images from docker.io/bitnami. In that case, you can resolve this by subscribing to Bitnami Secure Images, ensuring that the Helm charts receive continued support and security updates. As a temporary workaround, you can upgrade to the same version and update the repository parameter for each container image to the Bitnami Legacy repository.

🗓️ Timeline

• Now – August 28th, 2025

  • You will see deprecation notices in READMEs and documentation.
  • Plan your migration: Update CI/CD pipelines, Helm repos, and image references.
  • Start trying out the new hardened images available to the community today at https://hub.docker.com/u/bitnamisecure.

• August 28th, 2025

  • The public catalog switches to the limited community-tier subset of container images (the same images that are initially available here at https://hub.docker.com/u/bitnamisecure).
  • Legacy assets are archived in the Bitnami Legacy repository.

• Post-August 28th, 2025

  • For development purposes, community-tier users are restricted to pulling only the most recent ‘latest’ tags of the limited community-tier subset of container images.
  • Production users should subscribe to Bitnami Secure Images for full version support at https://www.arrow.com/globalecs/uk/products/bitnami-secure-images/#CTA.

FAQ

Q: What is the Bitnami Legacy repository?
A: The Bitnami Legacy repository is an archive that will host all older container images, including versioned tags (e.g., 2.50.0, 10.6) that are no longer maintained in the main Bitnami catalog. These images will not receive updates, fixes, or support and should only be used as a temporary fallback for migration purposes. Even though there are no updates to the container images, the Bitnami project continues to make its source available at bitnami/containers under the Apache 2 license.

Q: How is Bitnami Legacy repository different than Bitnami Mainline repository?
A:

• The Bitnami Mainline repository (docker.io/bitnami) currently hosts regularly updated and supported container images, including free and enterprise-grade offerings.
• The Bitnami Legacy repository will contain archived versions that will no longer receive updates. It is provided solely to help with migration during the transition.

After August 28th, 2025, only a limited set of hardened images will remain in the Bitnami Mainline repository. All others will be moved to the Bitnami Legacy repository.

Q: What do users of Bitnami Mainline repository need to do before August 28th, 2025?
A: Users should:

1. Review and update CI/CD pipelines to avoid relying on deprecated images.
2. Consider subscribing to Bitnami Secure Images if they need continued support, security updates, or access to full version history at https://www.arrow.com/globalecs/uk/products/bitnami-secure-images/#CTA.
3. Upgrade their deployments
4. If the deployed application belongs to the limited set of hardened images available under the new free community tier, double-check check the used tags are still updated.
5. Otherwise, point to the Bitnami Legacy repository as a temporary workaround.

Q: Are Bitnami’s free images going away?
A: Not entirely. Bitnami will continue to offer a limited subset of free, latest-version images intended for development use. These images will be more hardened and secure, but older versions and many applications will be removed from the free tier and moved to the Bitnami Legacy repository. You can browse the images available for free at https://hub.docker.com/u/bitnamisecure before August 28th, and after that date, the main Bitnami registry will have the same content.

Q: How can I get continued support for an application no longer available for free?
A: To continue receiving updates, security patches, and enterprise support for older or specific versions of an application, you can subscribe to the Bitnami Secure Images offering. This includes access to:

• Long-term support (LTS) branches
• Distroless and hardened images
• SBOMs, CVE transparency (VEX/KEV), and compliance artifacts
• SLSA Level 3 build processes

The Bitnami project continues to make its source available at bitnami/containers under the Apache 2 license; images can be built from source.

Q: How can I get continued support for Helm charts?
A: If your deployed Helm chart is failing to pull images from docker.io/bitnami, to ensure continued support and access to security updates, we recommend subscribing to Bitnami Secure Images at https://www.arrow.com/globalecs/uk/products/bitnami-secure-images/#CTA.

As a temporary workaround, you can keep using the same Helm chart version by pointing it to the “Bitnami Legacy repository, which hosts archived images with no further updates. For that, you can upgrade to the same chart version and update the repository parameter of each container image to the Bitnami Legacy repository:

• List container images: grep 'repository.*REPOSITORY_NAME/' postgresql/README.md | awk -F'\`' '{print $2, $(NF-1)}'
• Upgrade modifying repositories: helm upgrade RELEASE_NAME oci://registry-1.docker.io/bitnamicharts/CHART_NAME --version SAME_VERSION --set REPOSITORY_REFERENCE=bitnamilegacy
• REPOSITORY_REFERENCE is the path to the repository parameter as it is in the values.yaml for each container image.
• Example:

$ grep 'repository.*REPOSITORY_NAME/' postgresql/README.md | awk -F'\`' '{print $2, $(NF-1)}'
image.repository REPOSITORY_NAME/postgresql
volumePermissions.image.repository REPOSITORY_NAME/os-shell
metrics.image.repository REPOSITORY_NAME/postgres-exporter

$ helm upgrade mypostgres oci://registry-1.docker.io/bitnamicharts/postgresql \
--version 16.7.0 \
--set image.repository=bitnamilegacy/postgresql \
--set volumePermissions.image.repository=bitnamilegacy/os-shell \
--set metrics.image.repository=bitnamilegacy/postgres-exporter \
--set global.security.allowInsecureImages=true