For years, Bitnami has provided high-quality container images and Helm charts for popular open-source tools free of charge. Many Kubernetes administrators rely on these assets for their reliability and consistency.

On 16th July, via their GitHub, Bitnami announced that, starting 28th August, free access to versioned container images will end.

What's changing:

• Free access to versioned images ends
• Only “latest” Community images remain (for dev use only)
• Debian-based builds removed

The “good” news is that they have stated that they will keep the source code for their container images and Helm charts “maintained up-to-date and accessible on GitHub under the Apache 2 license.”

What to do:

If you are using Bitnami images and charts, you need to put a plan in place, such as:

• create pipelines to build images and Helm charts to store in your own repositories
• migrate to another image/chart provider
• or stump up the cash for Bitnami Secure Images

And, if relying on Bitnami’s source, we recommend mirroring it locally (fully allowed under Apache 2.0) and keeping an eye on developments.

Background

Broadcom acquired VMware, which owns Bitnami, in late 2023 for $69 billion, then swiftly overhauled its licensing model ditching perpetual licenses, hiking prices, and introducing restrictive terms. The move has sparked industry backlash, especially in Europe, where cloud providers are now challenging the deal in court over competition concerns.