Flux CD vs Helm

Overview

Helm

Stacks1.4K

Followers911

Votes18

Flux CD

Stacks81

Followers76

Votes1

GitHub Stars6.9K

Forks1.1K

Flux CD vs Helm: What are the differences?

Flux CD and Helm are two popular tools used in the Kubernetes ecosystem. Let's explore the key differences between them.

Deployment Strategy: Flux CD follows the GitOps approach, where the desired state of the cluster is defined in a Git repository, and Flux CD ensures that the actual state of the cluster matches the desired state. On the other hand, Helm is a package manager for Kubernetes that provides a templating engine for simplifying the deployment of complex applications.
Application Packaging: Flux CD focuses on continuous delivery by synchronizing changes from a Git repository to the cluster. It treats the Kubernetes manifests as the source of truth for application deployments. In contrast, Helm packages applications as reusable charts, providing a higher-level abstraction that includes dependencies, configuration, and metadata.
Granularity: Flux CD operates at the infrastructure level, managing the deployment of entire applications or services. It is primarily concerned with the structure and configuration necessary to run the application. Helm, on the other hand, allows fine-grained control over the deployment process. It enables users to define and manage specific components, such as Pods, Services, and ConfigMaps, within an application.
Versioning and Rollbacks: Flux CD tracks changes made to the Git repository, allowing rollbacks to previous versions if required. It ensures that only the desired versions are deployed to the cluster. With Helm, versioning and rollbacks are managed at the chart level. Helm maintains a release history, enabling easy rollback to previous chart versions, even if the chart configurations have changed.
Helm Repository: Helm provides a centralized repository (Helm Hub) where users can discover and share Helm charts. This makes it easier to find and use existing charts for different applications or services. Flux CD, on the other hand, relies on regular Git repositories to store and manage the Kubernetes manifests. Users need to maintain their own Git repositories or use a central Git repository management system.
Templating and Configuration: Helm offers a powerful templating engine that allows users to define dynamic configurations using variables, loops, and conditionals. This makes it easier to create reusable and customizable application configurations. Flux CD, being focused on synchronization, does not provide built-in templating capabilities. Any configuration templating needs to be handled externally before pushing the manifests to the Git repository.

In summary, Flux CD follows the GitOps approach, focusing on continuous delivery and infrastructure-level management of applications, while Helm is a package manager for Kubernetes that allows fine-grained control over deployments and provides a centralized repository for sharing charts.

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CLI (Node.js)

Manual

Detailed Comparison

Helm	Flux CD
Helm is the best way to find, share, and use software built for Kubernetes.	It is a tool that automatically ensures that the state of your Kubernetes cluster matches the configuration you’ve supplied in Git. It uses an operator in the cluster to trigger deployments inside Kubernetes, which means that you don’t need a separate continuous delivery tool.
-	Describe the entire desired state of your system in Git. This includes apps, configuration, dashboards, monitoring, and everything else; Use YAML to enforce conformance to the declared system. You don’t need to run kubectl because all changes go through Git. Use diffing tools to detect divergence between observed and desired state and receive notifications; Everything is controlled through pull requests, which means no learning curve for new developers. Just use your standard PR process. Your Git history provides a sequence of transactions, allowing you to recover system state from any snapshot. Fix a production issue via pull request rather than making changes to the running system
Statistics
GitHub Stars -	GitHub Stars 6.9K
GitHub Forks -	GitHub Forks 1.1K
Stacks 1.4K	Stacks 81
Followers 911	Followers 76
Votes 18	Votes 1
Pros & Cons
Pros 8 Infrastructure as code 6 Open source 2 Easy setup 1 Testability and reproducibility 1 Support	Pros 1 Open Source
Integrations
Docker Kubernetes	Git Kubernetes YAML

What are some alternatives to Helm, Flux CD?

Kubernetes

Kubernetes is an open source orchestration system for Docker containers. It handles scheduling onto nodes in a compute cluster and actively manages workloads to ensure that their state matches the users declared intentions.

Rancher

Rancher is an open source container management platform that includes full distributions of Kubernetes, Apache Mesos and Docker Swarm, and makes it simple to operate container clusters on any cloud or infrastructure platform.

Docker Compose

With Compose, you define a multi-container application in a single file, then spin your application up in a single command which does everything that needs to be done to get it running.

Docker Swarm

Swarm serves the standard Docker API, so any tool which already communicates with a Docker daemon can use Swarm to transparently scale to multiple hosts: Dokku, Compose, Krane, Deis, DockerUI, Shipyard, Drone, Jenkins... and, of course, the Docker client itself.

Tutum

Tutum lets developers easily manage and run lightweight, portable, self-sufficient containers from any application. AWS-like control, Heroku-like ease. The same container that a developer builds and tests on a laptop can run at scale in Tutum.

Portainer

It is a universal container management tool. It works with Kubernetes, Docker, Docker Swarm and Azure ACI. It allows you to manage containers without needing to know platform-specific code.

Codefresh

Automate and parallelize testing. Codefresh allows teams to spin up on-demand compositions to run unit and integration tests as part of the continuous integration process. Jenkins integration allows more complex pipelines.

CAST.AI

It is an AI-driven cloud optimization platform for Kubernetes. Instantly cut your cloud bill, prevent downtime, and 10X the power of DevOps.

k3s

Certified Kubernetes distribution designed for production workloads in unattended, resource-constrained, remote locations or inside IoT appliances. Supports something as small as a Raspberry Pi or as large as an AWS a1.4xlarge 32GiB server.

Flocker

Flocker is a data volume manager and multi-host Docker cluster management tool. With it you can control your data using the same tools you use for your stateless applications. This means that you can run your databases, queues and key-value stores in Docker and move them around as easily as the rest of your app.

Related Comparisons

Flux CD vs Helm: What are the differences?

Flux CD and Helm are two popular tools used in the Kubernetes ecosystem. Let's explore the key differences between them.

Deployment Strategy: Flux CD follows the GitOps approach, where the desired state of the cluster is defined in a Git repository, and Flux CD ensures that the actual state of the cluster matches the desired state. On the other hand, Helm is a package manager for Kubernetes that provides a templating engine for simplifying the deployment of complex applications.
Application Packaging: Flux CD focuses on continuous delivery by synchronizing changes from a Git repository to the cluster. It treats the Kubernetes manifests as the source of truth for application deployments. In contrast, Helm packages applications as reusable charts, providing a higher-level abstraction that includes dependencies, configuration, and metadata.
Granularity: Flux CD operates at the infrastructure level, managing the deployment of entire applications or services. It is primarily concerned with the structure and configuration necessary to run the application. Helm, on the other hand, allows fine-grained control over the deployment process. It enables users to define and manage specific components, such as Pods, Services, and ConfigMaps, within an application.
Versioning and Rollbacks: Flux CD tracks changes made to the Git repository, allowing rollbacks to previous versions if required. It ensures that only the desired versions are deployed to the cluster. With Helm, versioning and rollbacks are managed at the chart level. Helm maintains a release history, enabling easy rollback to previous chart versions, even if the chart configurations have changed.
Helm Repository: Helm provides a centralized repository (Helm Hub) where users can discover and share Helm charts. This makes it easier to find and use existing charts for different applications or services. Flux CD, on the other hand, relies on regular Git repositories to store and manage the Kubernetes manifests. Users need to maintain their own Git repositories or use a central Git repository management system.
Templating and Configuration: Helm offers a powerful templating engine that allows users to define dynamic configurations using variables, loops, and conditionals. This makes it easier to create reusable and customizable application configurations. Flux CD, being focused on synchronization, does not provide built-in templating capabilities. Any configuration templating needs to be handled externally before pushing the manifests to the Git repository.

Flux CD vs Helm

Overview