Helm Reviews & Insights

We use Helm in some Kubernetes-based environments. Mainly as a solution for deploying existing solutions that come to us based on Helm. I can give as an example the NoSQL database stacks we use that are fully implemented in our containerized environments via Helm charts. This model greatly facilitates updates and customizations that eventually become necessary.

If you need to automate the deployment of environments in Kubernetes and these environments should be easily replicable in other regions of your cloud provider or even in other cloud providers, then this is the tool for you. Just be prepared for a certain degree of complexity when creating the charts.

We are also using Terraform for deployment, but it's more suited for new deployments and specific use cases. Helm takes the lead in terms of containers software package management, and it addresses our use case of ensuring all software packages deployment are uniform, secure - from a trusted repository, rapid deployment and rollbacks.

Deployment of helm charts is really fundamental to any software packages to our Kubernetes/docker containers, and without Helm, I cannot imagine how else to manage software components upgrades. When it works, it works great, when it doesn't - the world has not come to an end, there is rollback, and it's great, but troubleshooting does take time. And there is a learning curve. But it be worth it.

Helm is the go-to tool to deploy large, complex containerized applications on Kubernetes clusters. It features a large ecosystem of ready-to-use charts, such as GitLab, MySQL, Nginx, etc., which can be deployed with a one-liner. We also use Helm to package the customer's containerized applications and help them with adopting DevOps or GitOps.

Helm is very well suited for setting up GitOps or DevOps pipelines, as well as quickly setting up large, complex applications, such as GitLab, Elasticsearch/Kibana, Prometheus/Kibana or MySQL. We also use it intensely to deploy and configure smaller building blocks in the Cloud Native / Kubernetes area, such as Ingress Controller, Cert Manager, External DNS, OpenPolicyAgent, Falco, Fluentd, to name a few.