Why we moved from Helm to Gitpod Installer

Gitpod has introduced a new Installer that simplifies the installation process of their product. Previously, they used Helm to orchestrate installations, but as features were added, the complexity of their Helm charts increased significantly. The new Gitpod Installer is written in Go and offers several advantages over Helm charts, including easier maintenance, less configuration surface, and improved type safety. It also provides a user-centric installation experience with fewer knobs and switches for users to manage. Additionally, the Installer supports backwards compatibility and version manifests, ensuring that a specific release of Gitpod always runs with a deterministic set of services and dependencies. The Installer is designed to be scalable across teams within Gitpod and enforces certain decisions as validation constraints at config and cluster levels for stability and ease of troubleshooting.