- Makes it possible to go from zero to fully running k8s integrated components in 5 seconds by just running 'helm install --repo https://example.com/charts/ mynginx nginx' (very useful: https://artifacthub.io/)
- Gives the ability to transactionally apply k8s configs, and un-apply them if there is a failure along the way (atomic rollbacks)
- Stores copies/versions/etc of each installation in the server so you have metadata for troubleshooting/operations/etc without having to keep it in some external system in a custom way.
- Allows a user who doesn't know anything about K8s to provide some simple variables to customize the installation of a bunch of K8s resources.
- Is composeable, has templates, etc.
So basically Helm has a lot of features, while Kustomize has... one. Very different purposes I think. You can also use both at the same time.
Personally I think Helm's atomic deployment feature is well worth it. I also love how easy it is to install charts. It feels a bit like magic.
> a plain helm install without any values rarely if ever gives you the deployment you need
works for me most of the time
> This is hardly unique to helm.
So what? The guy was asking what is nice about Helm vs Kustomize. Does Kustomize have rollbacks?
> In 2025 you should probably be using gitops
Gitops is literally just "hey I have some configs in Git and I run some command based on a checkout", i.e. infrastructure as code in a git repo. Gitops does not track live server metadata and deployment history. I don't get why people over-inflate this idea.
What do you mean by atomic deployment? There are no transactions in the Kubernetes API. Helm has to make one request for each object it creates or modifies, like any other client.
I believe(!) that the "rollback" that helm attempts to put back all the mutated objects, which it can - in theory - do because it maintains the previous state in the Secret objects that contain the rendered(?) and the values for the prior revision
try:
for obj in manifest_objects:
kubectl_apply(obj)
revisions.push(manifest_objects)
except:
old_revision = revisions.pop()
for obj in old_revision:
kubectl_apply(obj)
- Makes it possible to go from zero to fully running k8s integrated components in 5 seconds by just running 'helm install --repo https://example.com/charts/ mynginx nginx' (very useful: https://artifacthub.io/)
- Gives the ability to transactionally apply k8s configs, and un-apply them if there is a failure along the way (atomic rollbacks)
- Stores copies/versions/etc of each installation in the server so you have metadata for troubleshooting/operations/etc without having to keep it in some external system in a custom way.
- Allows a user who doesn't know anything about K8s to provide some simple variables to customize the installation of a bunch of K8s resources.
- Is composeable, has templates, etc.
So basically Helm has a lot of features, while Kustomize has... one. Very different purposes I think. You can also use both at the same time.
Personally I think Helm's atomic deployment feature is well worth it. I also love how easy it is to install charts. It feels a bit like magic.