Helm: A Practical Tool or a Necessary Evil for Kubernetes Deployments?

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Scaling Kubernetes environments is all about managing configuration drift, security, and operational efficiency across multiple teams and environments. YAML sprawl, inconsistent configurations, and rollback nightmares can quickly turn a well-intentioned deployment into a maintenance headache.

Our colleague Vytautas, who won the DevOps Star of the Year award at the Build Stuff conference last year, has spent years optimising Kubernetes deployments in complex environments. Helm has been a key part of that journey—but not without its challenges.

So, is Helm a game-changer or just another tool adding to Kubernetes complexity? Let’s break it down.

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Where Helm Excels in Real-World Deployments

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Helm is often introduced as the package manager for Kubernetes, but in reality, its biggest advantage is standardisation. Instead of managing separate YAML files for Deployments, Services, and ConfigMaps, you bundle everything into a Helm chart, making deployments repeatable and version controlled.

From our experience, Helm is particularly useful for:

• Managing multi-environment consistency – With values.yaml file, you can define common defaults while overriding configurations for dev, staging, and production.

• Versioning and rollbacks – Helm’s built-in history tracking makes it easy to revert to a known working state.

• GitOps workflows – By integrating Helm with tools like Flux and Argo CD, you can ensure that what’s in Git is what’s running in production.

However, while Helm solves many problems, it also introduces new ones—especially when misused.

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Where Helm Falls Short (and How to Work Around It)

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1. The Problem: Helm Charts Can Get Out of Control

Helm’s templating engine is powerful—but it’s easy to go overboard. We’ve seen charts so deeply nested and full of conditionals that they become unreadable. When a Helm chart becomes more complex than the Kubernetes YAML it replaces, you have a problem.

How to fix it:

• Keep Helm templates simple – If a chart starts looking like a full programming language, step back and reconsider the design.

• Use library charts for shared logic rather than copying templates across multiple charts.

2. The Problem: Helm Charts Drift from Reality

One of the biggest issues we’ve seen is Helm charts becoming out-of-sync with what’s actually running in the cluster. This happens when teams manually tweak live deployments outside of Helm’s lifecycle.

How to fix it:

• Use GitOps (Flux/Argo CD) to prevent manual changes.

• Regularly audit Helm releases to ensure consistency with Git.

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Alternatives: Is Helm Always the Best Choice?

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There’s a growing debate in the Kubernetes community about whether Helm should remain the default tool for managing deployments. Some teams are moving towards Kustomize or pure YAML + GitOps, arguing that Helm adds unnecessary abstraction.

Where Kustomize Wins:

• Allows patching configurations without needing to maintain separate values.yaml files.

• Works natively with Kubernetes, avoiding Helm’s templating quirks.

When Helm Still Makes Sense:

• For third-party applications (e.g., non-critical databases, monitoring, message brokers) where Helm charts are pre-built and maintained.

• When deploying complex applications with many dependencies that need consistent packaging and versioning.

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Final Thoughts: Helm is a Tool—Not a Silver Bullet

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Helm doesn’t eliminate Kubernetes complexity—it shifts it. Used correctly, it streamlines deployments and reduces operational burden. Used poorly, it becomes just another layer of complexity.

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