I still remember the first time I came across Kaniko. It was like stumbling on a rare gem – unexpected, elegant, and deeply useful. We were migrating our docker based Gitlab CI environment to Kubernetes and struggling to find a good solution for building container images. At the time, building container images in Kubernetes without privileged access felt like a moonshot. Kaniko made it feel native.
But as of June 3, 2025, the once-beloved tool has been officially archived. No more pull requests. No more issues. No more roadmap. Just a public archive banner and a GitHub repo sealed in amber.
“This repository was archived by the owner on Jun 3, 2025. It is now read-only.”
That’s it. That’s the goodbye.
Why Kaniko Mattered
Kaniko wasn’t just another container builder. It was a statement.
It showed us we could build images inside containers themselves –
no Docker daemon, no root privileges, no hacks. CI/CD pipelines got cleaner. Security teams sighed with relief. Kubernetes-native workflows finally had a first-class citizen for image building.
For many of us – especially those working deep in cloud-native stacks
Kaniko wasn’t just a tool. It was the enabler.
🧊 A Quiet Freeze
The signs were there. Issues went unanswered. Community PRs sat in limbo. And then, like many open-source projects born inside big tech, it hit the inevitable: internal shift, loss of maintainers, and eventually, project sunset.
The sad part? It wasn’t lack of relevance. Kaniko was still loved, still useful. But love alone doesn’t keep software alive – maintenance does.
🔄 What’s Next?
If you’re still depending on Kaniko, now is the time to evaluate alternatives:
Buildah for OCI-compliant, rootless builds.
- Podman for docker-like compatibility.
Docker BuildKit if you’re okay with Docker but want performance and security.
ko for Go developers who want to skip Dockerfiles entirely.
Each one brings its own flavor, but none carry quite the same aura Kaniko had. It was ahead of its time – and maybe that’s why it struggled to find long-term caretakers.
Kaniko, You Were Special
You gave us builds without daemons, pipelines without Docker-in-Docker, and courage to say: “yes, this can be done differently.”
Your name lives on in YAML files across the world. In Helm charts. In GitLab CI runners and Kubernetes jobs that still whisper your entrypoint. But now, we know. You’re resting.
And we thank you.
RIP Kaniko.
You came. You saw. You built.
And for a while, you conquered.
