For years, Kaniko has been a go-to tool for building container images inside CI/CD pipelines, especially in environments where Docker isn’t available. However, active development on Kaniko by Google has now come to an end.
The good news is that the project isn’t disappearing. Chainguard has stepped in, forking Kaniko and taking over its ongoing development. This move ensures that the tool remains available and continues to evolve, with a strong focus on modern security practices and supply chain integrity — areas where Chainguard has already established deep expertise.
From a DevOps perspective, this transition raises some interesting points. On the one hand, it’s reassuring to see a community-driven fork keep a widely used tool alive. On the other hand, it highlights the fragility of relying on single-vendor projects, especially when they underpin critical workflows in CI/CD systems.
This shift also opens the door for teams to re-evaluate their image build strategy. Should they continue with Kaniko under Chainguard’s stewardship, or consider alternatives like BuildKit, Tekton, or other container-native solutions?