Documentation
Welcome to the HelmForge documentation. Here you will find everything you need to install, configure, and operate our Helm charts in production Kubernetes clusters.
Quick Links
- Getting Started — Add the repository and install your first chart
- Charts Overview — Browse all available charts
- Blog Authoring — Publish discovery-ready blog posts with the required metadata, images, references, feeds, and validation evidence
What is HelmForge?
HelmForge is a collection of open-source Helm charts designed for production use. Every chart is built with the same principles:
- Security — Non-root containers, network policies, pod security standards, and TLS support
- Observability — Prometheus metrics endpoints, ServiceMonitor resources, and alerting configurations
- Simplicity — Product-oriented
values.yamlfiles that focus on application configuration, not Kubernetes internals - Testing — Comprehensive unit tests, strict linting, and conformance validation on every change
Distribution
Charts are available through two channels:
| Method | URL |
|---|---|
| HTTPS Repository | https://repo.helmforge.dev |
| OCI Registry | oci://ghcr.io/helmforgedev/helm |
The Origin Story
For years, the Kubernetes ecosystem relied heavily on tools like Bitnami for getting robust, ready-to-use application charts deployed into production.
However, following the Broadcom acquisition, the landscape drastically shifted. The open-source community discovered that Bitnami’s free offerings were relegated to “legacy images” (with official warnings stating: “This repository is no longer updated. Please note that this repository may be removed”). For long-term enterprise support and production workloads, users are now gated behind proprietary “Bitnami Secure Images” that require you to “Contact sales”.
HelmForge was born out of necessity to fill this gaping void. We believe DevOps engineers should not have their infrastructure held hostage by sudden paywalls or confusing licensing changes. HelmForge provides an alternative that is 100% Free Forever, explicitly open-source under the Apache-2.0 license, and built to ‘just work’ out of the box.
Core Philosophy
- Zero Lock-in: 100% open-source (Apache License 2.0) and built on standard upstream images.
- Production Defaults: TLS configurations, non-root constraints, ResourceQuotas, and metrics are ready inside every chart.
- Built-in S3 Backups: We treat Day-2 operations as primary. Our charts contain integrated Kubernetes CronJobs that backup directly to any S3-compatible storage.
HelmForge isn’t just a registry; it’s a movement to keep Kubernetes application deployment accessible, secure, and permanently open.