Nelm, a new alternative to Helm, is GA

werf, a CNCF Sandbox project, announced Nelm as a new tool for deploying Helm charts.

Nelm is a new deployment tool for managing Helm charts and deploying them to Kubernetes. It's fully compatible with existing charts and offers several improvements and new features on top of Helm, striving to solve known issues and pains of Helm users.

What makes Nelm special (key features):

Server-Side Apply instead of 3-Way Merge to ensure a more reliable way of updating Kubernetes resources;
Powerful capabilities to specify the dependencies and order in which the resources are deployed to Kubernetes;
Advanced resource tracking, including detection of resource readiness and presence, and support for Custom Resources;
Transparent and prompt feedback during the deployment process;
Reliable previews for releases;
Embedded secret management;
Smart CRD management (e.g. updating them when needed);
Full compatibility with Helm charts and simple migration for Helm users.

Try Nelm and find out more details about the project, including its CLI commands, new annotations, and notes about Helm compatibility, by following the docs and release links on GitHub. Your feedback in a form of GitHub issues and/or discussions will be much appreciated!