The Bitnami Open Source Application Catalog Turns 18!
The Bitnami open source application catalog fundamentally changed the way developers access and deploy open source software when it was introduced 18 years ago. Today it powers many of the world’s largest software marketplaces, including those offered by the biggest cloud providers, and receives more than 500 million downloads each month. Now that it’s approaching two decades old, it might be time for you to get to know Bitnami!
Bitnami’s Origin Story
Started in 2007 by Daniel López and Erica Brescia, Bitnami’s mission was simple: to make it easier for developers to deploy open source software on any platform. Before Bitnami, developers were often faced with the daunting task of configuring complex environments for popular open source applications. Whether it was a content management system (CMS) like WordPress or a development stack like LAMP, the process of getting an application up and running was anything but straightforward.
Source: Bitnami
Bitnami set out to solve this problem by providing prepackaged application stacks that could be easily installed, configured and kept up to date. These stacks included all the necessary components — like the right versions of databases, runtimes and libraries — so developers could focus on building great software rather than managing complex environments.
From Installers to Cloud and Kubernetes
As the technology landscape evolved, so did Bitnami. While it started with installers and virtual machines, the rise of cloud computing presented new opportunities to expand. The ability to easily deploy applications on cloud platforms like AWS, Azure and Google Cloud became a game-changer for developers, and Bitnami quickly adapted by creating cloud native applications and offering easy deployment through cloud marketplaces.
In the last decade, the rise of containers shaped Bitnami’s trajectory. Recognizing the shift toward containerized applications, Bitnami introduced support for Docker containers and Helm charts. Bitnami has expanded the number of supported Helm charts, contributing code and empowering developers to seamlessly deploy and manage their applications in Kubernetes environments.
Building Enterprise-Ready Catalogs
Today, Bitnami is a critical tool in the modern developer’s kit. With ready-to-use application stacks, development environments and infrastructure tools, Bitnami helps developers automate deployment and focus on what truly matters: building their own products.
The Bitnami team continues expanding the catalog with new versions and applications. In the last few months, Bitnami released new major versions for Clickhouse 25, Cypress 14, Envoy 1.33, Golang 1.24, Laravel 12, MariaDB 11.7, Node.js 23, WildFly 35 and many more. New Kubernetes and container solutions were added, including Apache Superset, ArangoDB Kubernetes Operator, CloudNativePG (PostgreSQL Operator) and VictoriaMetrics.
Over the past 18 years, Bitnami has logged:
- More than 300,000 cloud images available for users in AWS, Google and Azure marketplaces.
- More than 2 million container image versions published.
- More than 120,000 Helm charts released.
Bitnami adoption remains strong today, with more than 42 million cloud instances launched and more than 500 million container images pulled each month.
To measure up to its motto, “Loved by developers. Trusted by ops,” Bitnami extended its focus on enterprise-grade security and compliance.
Bitnami fully automates the application life-cycle management process, from installation and configuration to deployment and full stack updates. This allows for quicker response times and MTTR (mean time to recovery) when a critical security issue arises. A very recent example is making a fix for the latest Ingress-nginx critical CVE (2025-1974, or IngressNightmare) available for users in Bitnami application catalogs just two hours after its official release.
To help protect the software supply chain, Bitnami implements security best practices and supports the leading and most up-to-date security frameworks and regulations including SLSA (supply-chain levels for software artifacts) level 3 compliance, signatures, in-toto attestation, SBOMs (supply chain bills of materials), and antivirus and real-time CVE scans. Recently, Bitnami’s commercial offerings, Bitnami Premium and Tanzu Application Catalog, released minimal containers for runtimes based on distroless images, reducing the surface attack and getting close to zero CVEs.
The Power of Community
Bitnami couldn’t have achieved this milestone without the contributions of its incredible community. Whether you’re a developer, a sysadmin or a cloud engineer, your feedback, contributions and enthusiasm have been crucial in shaping Bitnami into what it is today.
To everyone who has used Bitnami’s solutions over the years — from small startups to enterprise companies — thank you for placing your trust in us. Your dedication and support continue to inspire us to push the boundaries of what’s possible.
Looking Ahead: The Future of Bitnami
As we celebrate our 18th anniversary, we’re already looking toward the future. The world of cloud computing, containers and DevOps is evolving rapidly, and the Bitnami team is committed to staying at the forefront of these innovations. As always, we’re here to help developers and businesses deploy and manage their applications with ease, whether in the cloud, containers or Kubernetes. Here’s to the next 18 years of innovation, collaboration and empowering developers everywhere!
