Florian ForsterandCopilot 3fdac54878 docs: simplify helm chart guide (#11781)
## Summary

Rewrites the Kubernetes quickstart (Stage 1) to match the simplicity of
the Docker Compose quickstart. With the new bundled chart, users deploy
the full stack — PostgreSQL, Traefik, ZITADEL API, ZITADEL Login — with
two copy-paste blocks and no prerequisites beyond a Kubernetes cluster.

## Before / After

**Before:**
- Requires a pre-installed ingress controller
- 4 manual steps: install PostgreSQL separately, create secrets, wire DB
config, install ZITADEL
- Users need to understand Helm dependency management

**After:**
```bash
mkdir zitadel-helm && cd zitadel-helm &&
curl -fsSLO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/zitadel/zitadel-charts/main/examples/0-quickstart/quickstart-values.yaml
```
```bash
helm repo add zitadel https://charts.zitadel.com &&
helm repo add bitnami https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami &&
helm repo add traefik https://traefik.github.io/charts &&
helm repo update &&
helm upgrade --install zitadel zitadel/zitadel --values quickstart-values.yaml --wait
```

Same UX as the Docker Compose quickstart. Mirrors the GitLab chart
pattern.

## Changes to `kubernetes/index.mdx`

### Stage 1 — Quickstart (full rewrite)
- Prerequisites reduced to: a Kubernetes cluster (1.30+), kubectl, Helm
- k3d moved to an optional callout tip (no longer required)
- Install section: `mkdir` → `curl` → `helm upgrade --install --wait`
(two copy-paste blocks, same pattern as compose)
- `helm upgrade --install` instead of `helm install` — idempotent, safe
to re-run
- "Swap out components" table: shows how to replace PostgreSQL, Traefik,
or add Redis
- Callouts: masterkey warning, stack architecture diagram

### Stage 2+ (unchanged)
Production cluster setup, TLS, cert-manager, etc. are untouched.

## Related
- Chart changes PR:
[zitadel/zitadel-charts#560](https://github.com/zitadel/zitadel-charts/pull/560)

---------

Co-authored-by: Copilot <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
2026-03-17 10:36:23 +00:00
2023-07-17 10:08:20 +02:00
2024-07-26 22:39:55 +02:00
2021-02-08 16:48:41 +01:00
2025-04-02 16:53:06 +02:00
2026-02-04 11:51:43 +01:00
2026-02-25 19:36:00 -03:00

ZITADEL Logo ZITADEL Logo

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The Identity Infrastructure for Developers

ZITADEL is an open-source identity and access management platform built for teams that need more than basic auth. Whether you're securing a SaaS product, building a B2B platform, or self-hosting a production IAM stack — ZITADEL gives you everything out of the box: SSO, MFA, Passkeys, OIDC, SAML, SCIM, and a battle-tested multi-tenancy model.

No vendor lock-in. No compromise on control. Just a robust, API-first identity platform you can own.


🏡 Website  |  💬 Chat  |  📋 Docs  |  🧑‍💻 Blog  |  📞 Contact


Why ZITADEL

We built ZITADEL to handle the hardest IAM challenges at scale — starting with multi-tenancy.

ZITADEL FusionAuth Keycloak Auth0/Okta
Open-source
Self-hostable
Infrastructure-level tenants Instances (High scale) Tenants 🟡 Realms (Scaling limits) (Multi-tenant = multi-account)
B2B Organizations Native & Unlimited 🟡 via Entity Management (Recent addition) 🟡 (Plan/Account dependent)
Full audit trail Comprehensive Event Stream* 🟡 Audit logs 🟡 Audit logs 🟡 Audit logs
Passkeys (FIDO2)
Actions / webhooks 🟡 via SPI
API-first (gRPC + REST) 🟡 REST only 🟡 REST only 🟡 REST only
SaaS + self-host parity N/A N/A

ZITADEL Cloud and self-hosted ZITADEL run the same codebase.

Key differentiators for architects:

  • Relational core, event-driven soul — every mutation is written as an immutable event for a complete, API-accessible audit trail. Unlike systems that log only select activities, ZITADEL provides a comprehensive event stream that can be audited or streamed to external systems via Webhooks.
  • Strict multi-tenant hierarchy — Identity System → Organizations → Projects, with isolated data and policy scoping at multiple levels
  • API-first design — every resource and action is available via connectRPC, gRPC, and HTTP/JSON APIs
  • Zero-downtime updates and horizontal scalability without external session stores

Get Started in 3 Minutes

👉 Quick Start Guide

ZITADEL Self-Hosted

# Docker Compose — up and running in under 3 minutes
curl -LO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/zitadel/zitadel/main/deploy/compose/docker-compose.yml \
  && curl -LO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/zitadel/zitadel/main/deploy/compose/.env.example \
  && cp .env.example .env \
  && docker compose up -d --wait

Full deployment guides:

Need professional support for your self-hosted deployment? Contact us.

ZITADEL Cloud (SaaS)

Start for free at zitadel.com — no credit card required. Available in US · EU · AU · CH. Pay-as-you-go pricing.


Integrate with the V2 API

ZITADEL exposes every capability over a typed API. Here's how to create a user with the V2 REST API:

curl -X POST https://$ZITADEL_DOMAIN/v2/users/human \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $ACCESS_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "username": "alice@example.com",
    "profile": { "givenName": "Alice", "familyName": "Smith" },
    "email": { "email": "alice@example.com", "sendCode": {} }
  }'

Explore the full API reference — including connectRPC and gRPC transports — or jump straight to quickstart examples.


Features

Authentication

Multi-Tenancy

Integration

Self-Service & Admin

Deployment

Track upcoming features on our roadmap and follow our changelog for recent updates.


Showcase

Login V2

Our new, fully customizable login experience — documentation


Adopters & Ecosystem

Used in production by organizations worldwide. See the full Adopters list — and add yours by submitting a pull request.


How To Contribute

ZITADEL is built in the open and welcoming to contributions of all kinds.

Contributors

Made with contrib.rocks.


Security

Security policy: SECURITY.md

Vulnerability Disclosure Policy — how to responsibly report security issues.

Technical Advisories are published for major issues that could impact security or stability in production.

License

AGPL-3.0 — see LICENSING.md for the full licensing policy, including Apache 2.0 and MIT exceptions for specific directories.

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