Helm

Helm is the de facto Kubernetes package manager and greatly simplifies the installation and management of Kubernetes applications.

Helm was accepted into the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) in 2018 as an official top level project. As such, it sits alongside Kubernetes, Prometheus, gRPC, and others.

As a package manager, it’s like apt for Ubuntu and brew for Mac. In the case of Helm, it hides all the complexities of things like Deployments, Pods, and Persistent Volumes in a construct called a chart. Think of a chart as the Helm equivalent of a YUM, DEB, or homebrew package. As such, you can install, update, and delete Kubernetes applications via the application’s Helm chart.

You can also share your charts with the community as well as reuse existing charts.