The History of the Project
This page has not yet been updated for Helm 4. Some of the content might be inaccurate or not applicable to Helm 4. For more information about the Helm 4 new features, improvements, and breaking changes, see Helm 4 Overview.
Helm is a graduated CNCF project.
Helm began as what is now known as Helm Classic, a Deis project begun in 2015 and introduced at the inaugural KubeCon.
In January of 2016, the project merged with a GCS tool called Kubernetes Deployment Manager, and the project was moved under Kubernetes. As a result of the merging of codebases, Helm 2.0 was released later that year. The key feature of Deployment Manager that survived in Helm 2 was the server-side component, renamed from DM to Tiller for the final Helm 2.0 release.
Helm was promoted from a Kubernetes subproject to a full-fledged CNCF project in June, 2018. Helm formed a top-level governing body and several projects were subsumed under the Helm project, including Monocular, the Helm Chart Repo, Chart Museum, and later the Helm Hub.
When the Helm 3 development cycle began, Tiller was removed, bringing Helm closer to its original vision of being a client tool. But Helm 3 continues to track releases inside of the Kubernetes cluster, making it possible for teams to work together on a common set of Helm releases. Helm 3 was released in November 2019.
Helm graduated as a CNCF project in April 2020.
The CNCF Artifact Hub replaced the Helm Hub in October 2020.