Minimus Registry Shutdown on 22 October 2026: What to Do and What Replaces It

The short answer

Minimus says it will "cease operations and turn off the Minimus registry" (reg.mini.dev) on Thursday 22 October 2026. Images you pulled before that date "will, of course, continue to function", but "no further updated images will be provided". A 60-day maintenance period, with bug fixes, commercial support and upstream updates, began on 24 August 2026. If any manifest, Helm values file or CI job references reg.mini.dev, you need a copy of those images in a registry you control, and a replacement source, before the 22nd.

Source: the notice on minimus.io, read on 14 October 2026. Echo's post "Echo is acquiring Minimus", dated 27 August 2026, says Echo has acquired key Minimus assets and that Minimus customers need not take "any further action". It does not mention the registry date, so confirm directly with Echo or Minimus whether your pulls continue after 22 October.

What should I check this week?

1. Find every reference to reg.mini.dev in Dockerfiles, Kubernetes manifests, Helm values, Terraform, CI pipelines and admission-policy allow-lists.
2. Find out what is not cached. A node that already holds an image keeps running it. A new node, a rescheduled pod on a clean node or a rebuilt pipeline has to pull, and a registry that is switched off cannot serve it.
3. Copy the images you depend on into your own registry now, by digest, and check the licence terms for your Minimus tier first.
4. Pick a replacement and pin its digests. Updated images stop arriving from Minimus after 22 October, so anything left on a copied image slowly accumulates CVEs.
5. Enterprise Edition customers: Minimus says it is contacting each one about ending the agreement, including refunds for the period after 22 October. Read that email.

Which vendors replace Minimus images after 22 October?

Minimus sold minimal, distroless-style images across many languages and applications. The closest substitutes are other general hardened-image catalogues. OSSeva is narrower: it covers seven data and messaging image families and is the fit when the image is a Bitnami-layout database or broker, especially a version past upstream end of life. Details below come from each vendor's own pages, read on 14 October 2026.

OSSeva does not replace a general minimal-image catalogue, and it does not carry the Minimus application images outside those seven families. If you ran Minimus for Node.js, Python or Go base images, use one of the first three options. If the Minimus images you depend on are PostgreSQL, Redis, Kafka or RabbitMQ, talk to us about drop-in images and keep the Bitnami variables, data paths and non-root user your charts expect.

For a side-by-side of the large catalogues, including their published CVE remediation SLAs, read Chainguard vs Docker Hardened Images vs Bitnami Secure Images. If you are also leaving the free Bitnami catalogue, Bitnami alternatives compared covers the full field.

Frequently asked questions

When is the Minimus registry shutting down?

Thursday 22 October 2026, according to the notice on minimus.io. The registry is reg.mini.dev.

Will images I already pulled still work?

Per Minimus, images pulled before 22 October continue to function, but no further updated images will be provided, so they stop receiving CVE fixes.

Is Minimus being acquired by Echo?

Echo's post of 27 August 2026 says it has acquired key Minimus technology and assets as Minimus winds down. Minimus's own notice says it is ending operations. Neither page says which Minimus products Echo will keep serving, so ask Echo directly.

What is the best Minimus alternative?

For general minimal images, Chainguard, Docker Hardened Images or Echo. For Bitnami-layout PostgreSQL, Redis, Kafka, ZooKeeper, RabbitMQ, MongoDB or Elasticsearch, including end-of-life versions, OSSeva. Choose by the versions you run and whether you need a free tier.