Best Bitnami alternative: migrate without breaking your infrastructure

Key takeaways

• Bitnami’s Debian-based community images have been deprecated, and existing versions were moved to the Bitnami legacy repository without further updates or support.
  
• Helm charts and open-source container definitions remain public under Apache 2.0.
  
• VMware has launched Bitnami Secure Images, which is a paid catalog built on Photon OS and distroless bases with enterprise-grade compliance (FIPS, STIG, FedRAMP, SLSA, VEX, SBOMs, signatures).
  
• Teams still running Debian-based Bitnami images should migrate immediately to avoid exposure to frozen CVEs.
  
• echo provides the most secure Bitnami alternative, offering CVE-free base images and compatibility with upstream Helm charts to preserve functionality without technical debt.

What is Bitnami?

Bitnami began in 2007 with a mission to make open-source software enterprise-ready. Initially focused on packaging applications for bare-metal and virtual machine deployments, it quickly evolved to meet new infrastructure models, introducing containerized application stacks in 2013, and later, Helm packaging in 2019 to enable Kubernetes-ready deployments across multiple Linux distributions.

Over the course of nearly two decades, Bitnami has become the backbone of many development workflows with its pre-built, versioned images for databases, developer tools, and monitoring systems. It has simplified application delivery by bundling dependencies, security patches, and configuration into a single image that “just works.”

Until mid-2025, developers could pull free versioned images from public registries like Docker Hub or GitHub, but as of very recently, that era has ended. Beginning August 28, 2025, VMware removed or froze most public Bitnami artifacts. Only a limited subset of “latest” tags remains accessible under the community tier, while versioned images are now only available as part of the paid Bitnami Secure Images service.

Why you need to move away from Bitnami

If your CI/CD pipelines, Helm charts, or Kubernetes clusters have depended on Bitnami images, the transition that began at the end of August is an operational risk.

That means:

• Existing images were migrated to the Bitnami legacy repository, which is read-only and unsupported.
  
• Helm charts and container source code remain open under Apache 2.0 for anyone to self-maintain.
  
• Users must either subscribe to Bitnami Premium or pin Helm charts to the bitnamilegacy repository, accepting that those images will no longer receive updates.
  
• Minideb and Sealed Secrets remain public and supported.
  
• Continuing to build and run with legacy Bitnami images leads to deployment failures (ImagePullBackOff, ErrImagePull) and discrepancies when rebuilding from old tags. And the root cause is pretty clear: those images no longer exist in their previous registries or have been archived under bitnamilegacy.

Most teams running production workloads on Debian-based Bitnami stacks are now effectively using frozen software, which means every newly disclosed vulnerability is left unpatched. This is particularly risky for compliance-driven environments like government, finance, or healthcare, where unmaintained base images can trigger audit failures.

Best Bitnami alternative

While Bitnami Premium offers continuity for existing users, for many, it’s simply not the ideal path forward. Bitnami has gone through significant shifts over the years, from open community builds to tightly controlled commercial distributions, mirroring a broader industry trend of vendors moving formerly public resources behind paywalls. This standardized, opinionated approach may be okay for small teams seeking convenience, but it significantly limits flexibility for organizations, particularly enterprise, that require deeper customization, ownership, and application-specific optimizations in their containers and Helm charts.

That’s why, many are increasingly looking into Bitnami alternatives. The strongest approach depends on what exactly you need to replace: the base images, Helm charts, or both. Below are the main categories of replacements, along with how they compare.

1. Open-source rebuilds

Community-maintained mirrors and forks, such as Northflank’s Bitnami Community Mirror, are still keeping some images available.

• Pros: Familiar setup, open-source accessibility.
• Cons: Limited maintenance and uncertain update cadence.

2. Automated, secure-by-design replacements

echo is a replacement that takes a fundamentally different approach. Instead of maintaining legacy Debian images, echo continuously rebuilds container base images from scratch, eliminating every known CVE before they’re ever deployed.

How echo compares to a traditional Bitnami image alternative:

• Security: echo images are built and kept CVE-free, while legacy Bitnami images will continue accumulating vulnerabilities.
  
• Automation: echo automatically rebuilds base images to maintain ongoing security.
  
• Compatibility: echo provides drop-in replacements for popular Bitnami images (postgreSQL, redis, nginx, wordpress, kafka, rabbitmq, etc.).
  
• Compliance: Every echo image is cryptographically signed and aligned with FedRAMP, SOC 2, and FIPS frameworks to fast-track compliance.
  

Recommended migration path:

• Replace Bitnami images with echo CVE-free images, which offer the same functionality without compromising security.
  
• Replace Bitnami Helm charts with their upstream open-source equivalents, ensuring continued community support and version flexibility.
  
• echo images are built to work natively and smoothly with the upstream Helm charts, so this combination restores agility while improving your overall security posture – avoiding vendor lock-in and patch backlogs, with full compliance transparency.

Migration best practices

If you’re planning to migrate, the right approach ensures a very straightforward process. Bitnami users typically rely on two core components: container images and Helm charts. Functionally, these are nearly identical to their upstream counterparts, with the main difference being Bitnami’s standardized environment variables and formatting conventions.

So, to migrate safely, start with the images. If you’re migrating to echo’s CVE-free images in this case, they maintain full functional parity, so you can simply replace the FROM in your Dockerfile. For example, to switch from a Bitnami image to echo’s nginx base, you’d simply change:

# Old Bitnami image
FROM bitnami/nginx:1.25

# New echo image
FROM echohq/nginx:1.25-cvefree

Chart-wise, for long-term stability, it’s best to migrate directly to the upstream Helm charts Bitnami originally forked from, such as nginx-stable/nginx for nginx or fluent/fluent-bit for Fluent Bit. echo images are designed to work natively with these upstream charts, ensuring a smooth transition without configuration drift, so this combination delivers the same functionality, with improved transparency and maintainability.

To avoid downtime or broken dependencies during migration, follow these steps:

1. Inventory dependencies: Identify all Bitnami-based images and charts in production and CI/CD environments.
   
2. Prioritize critical workloads: Migrate public-facing or regulated workloads first.
   
3. Replace base images: Swap Bitnami image references for echo equivalents in manifests and pipelines.
   
4. Switch charts: Use upstream Helm charts instead of Bitnami’s pre-bundled versions.
   
5. Run validation: Test image compatibility and chart deployments in staging.
   
6. Enforce automation: Integrate echo image rebuilds into CI/CD for continuous patching.
   
7. Document provenance: Update SBOMs and compliance reports with new image sources.
   

Following this sequence ensures migrations strengthen, rather than disrupt, your application infrastructure.

Migration timeline example

The time it takes to migrate varies, but typical migrations can be completed within two to four weeks.

• Week 1: Audit dependencies and risks.
  
• Week 2: Replace staging images and Helm charts.
  
• Week 3: Roll out production replacements and validate.
  
• Week 4: Retire legacy images and finalize compliance documentation.
  

That said, teams using echo often cut this process down to days, since compatible, CVE-free images are designed to be drop-in replacements and thus extremely easy and quick to implement.

FAQs

What’s happening with Bitnami images now?

Bitnami’s Debian-based community images have been deprecated and moved to the bitnamilegacy repository, where they no longer receive updates or support. While the Helm charts and open-source container definitions remain available under the Apache 2.0 license, all new, supported images are part of VMware’s Bitnami Secure Images offering. This commercial catalog includes hardened Photon-based builds with enterprise-grade compliance and continuous updates.

Which Bitnami alternatives are most secure?

Most organizations have found echo to be the most secure and easy-to-implement Bitnami alternative. echo automatically rebuilds CVE-free base images from clean upstream sources, removing vulnerabilities before they ever reach production. Every image is signed, verified, and aligned with compliance frameworks such as FedRAMP, SOC 2, and FIPS. By eliminating vulnerability noise at the foundation, echo takes the heavy lifting of patching and verification off your plate, ensuring security at scale without slowing developers down.

Are managed platforms safer than open-source replacements?

Generally, yes, managed catalogs like AWS Marketplace or Azure’s image libraries offer SLAs, provenance data, and consistent patching. However, these platforms still depend on upstream fixes to roll out updates. So, combining a managed platform with automated rebuilds and continuous remediation delivers the strongest long-term protection. This approach ensures that even if an upstream image becomes vulnerable, your base layers are automatically rebuilt and verified, keeping you secure and compliant without the need for manual intervention on your end.

How long does a Bitnami migration take?

Migration timelines vary by environment size. Most organizations complete the process within two to four weeks, while echo users typically migrate in under a week, thanks to the seamless compatibility of its Debian-based OS. Because echo’s CVE-free images are drop-in replacements, teams can switch over without headache – allowing migrations to happen quickly and safely.

Can I keep using Bitnami via legacy repos?

Technically yes, but it’s not advised. The bitnamilegacy repository remains accessible for historical versions; however, those images are frozen and unpatched. Over time, vulnerabilities in these legacy layers accumulate, exposing organizations to known CVEs, potential exploits, and compliance failures. Continuing to use them is effectively choosing to operate without updates, which may pass functional tests for now, but will definitely fail security and regulatory audits.