Article
Major Changes Coming to Bitnami Public Catalog
Team, ackresponse
Article Group
Editor, ackresponse
July 25, 2025
5 min Read
As containerization continues to drive the future of application deployment, developers and enterprises have relied heavily on trusted sources like Bitnami for pre-packaged, production-ready container images and Helm charts. However, starting August 28th, 2025, Bitnami is making major changes to its public catalog, and these changes could significantly impact how you manage infrastructure in both development and production environments.
Image credit: bitnami/containers, #83267
What's Changing?
Bitnami is restructuring its catalog into three main parts:
- Bitnami Secure Images (New Paid Offering)
- Enterprise-grade containers and Helm charts
- Hardened images with minimal attack surface
- SLSA Level 3 build processes
- SBOMs, CVE reports, and compliance artifacts
- Long-term support (LTS) branches
- Ideal for production environments
- Available at: https://www.arrow.com/globalecs/uk/products/bitnami-secure-images/#CTA
- Community Tier (Free)
- A limited selection of free container images
- Only the latest tag is available
- Designed strictly for development or proof-of-concept (PoC) use
- Available at: https://hub.docker.com/u/bitnamisecure
- Bitnami Legacy Repository
- Archive of all older and versioned images
- Located at docker.io/bitnamilegacy
- No future updates or security patches
- Provided only as a temporary fallback during migration
- Available at: https://hub.docker.com/u/bitnamilegacy
Why This Matters
If your infrastructure currently uses container images from the Bitnami mainline repository (docker.io/bitnami), your builds and deployments may soon start failing or fall out of compliance due to:
- Deprecated image tags
- Missing security patches
- Removed older versions
- Broken Helm chart references
What Should You Do?
Here's how to stay ahead of the change:
For Development/PoC Use:
- Switch to hardened community images at bitnamisecure
- Use latest tags only
- These are secure, minimal, but limited in variety and versions
For Production Use:
- Subscribe to Bitnami Secure Images
- Gain access to older versions
- Long-term support
- Security updates
- Compliance-ready images
For Migration Scenarios:
- Temporarily point to docker.io/bitnamilegacy
- Update your Helm chart values.yaml or image references
- Note: Legacy images are unsupported and should be phased out
Timeline
| Date | Change |
|---|---|
| Now | Start planning. Test new images from bitnamisecure. Update CI/CD pipelines. |
| August 28, 2025 | Full switch: Only community-tier latest images remain on public Bitnami repo. Others archived. |
| Post-August 28, 2025 | Use bitnamisecure for dev and subscribe for production. Legacy repo is for temporary use only. |
Example Helm Migration
If you're using Helm and notice pull failures, you can update image repositories like this:
helm upgrade mypostgres oci://registry-1.docker.io/bitnamicharts/postgresql \ --version 16.7.0 \ --set image.repository=bitnamilegacy/postgresql \ --set volumePermissions.image.repository=bitnamilegacy/os-shell \ --set metrics.image.repository=bitnamilegacy/postgres-exporter \ --set global.security.allowInsecureImages=true
Industry Impact
This move from Bitnami represents a broader industry trend: free-tier container images are becoming more limited, and enterprises must invest in secure, compliant image sources.
If you run production workloads or manage multi-cloud environments, now is the perfect time to:
- Review your dependencies
- Clean up deprecated images
- Strengthen your container image supply chain
How ackresponse Can Help
At ackresponse, we're actively adapting our CI/CD and Helm-based pipelines to comply with these changes, and we're happy to help others plan this transition too. Our expertise includes:
- Container Migration Strategy: We can help you assess your current Bitnami usage and create a migration plan.
- CI/CD Pipeline Updates: We'll update your deployment pipelines to use the new image repositories.
- Security Compliance: We ensure your container images meet security and compliance requirements.
- Helm Chart Management: We help maintain and update your Helm charts for the new Bitnami structure.
Don't wait until August 2025 to start planning. Contact us today to ensure your infrastructure remains secure and compliant.
About ackresponse
ackreponse is a UK-based IT consultancy firm, dedicated to empowering businesses across all sectors with innovative, cutting-edge technologies. We are passionate about helping you build and implement solutions that unlock your business potential and drive successes.
Want to find out more about how we can help, please contact:
enquiry@ackresponse.comOur services
ackresponse.
Empowering businesses and organizations with cutting-edge technology and a visionary approach to growth. Let's collaborate to drive your success to new heights.