Official vs Community Crossplane Providers¶
Crossplane providers are distributed in two tiers built from the same Upjet-generated source code. The tier affects licensing, support, and operational capabilities — not the resource API.
Community tier¶
Published under the Apache 2.0 license to xpkg.crossplane.io/crossplane-contrib/
(proxies GHCR). No subscription required.
Example: crossplane-contrib/provider-upjet-aws
Official tier¶
Commercial downstream builds by Upbound. Packages published after March 25, 2025 require an Upbound subscription.
Published to xpkg.upbound.io/upbound/.
Example: upbound/provider-aws
Feature comparison¶
| Feature | Community | Official |
|---|---|---|
| Free to use | Yes | Subscription required (post March 2025) |
| LTS (12 months + 6 month backports) | No | Yes |
| Security/regression backports | No | Yes |
| Signed releases | No | Yes |
| SBOM | No | Yes |
| Multi-language schemas (KCL, Python) | No | Yes |
safe-start MRAP capability |
No | Yes |
| Commercial support (SLA) | No | Yes |
Syntax compatibility¶
Both tiers share identical CRD names, API groups, and ProviderConfig syntax.
Switching only requires changing spec.package in the Provider manifest —
managed resources, MRAPs, and Compositions are unaffected.
Choosing a tier¶
| Situation | Recommendation |
|---|---|
| No Upbound subscription | Community |
| Need LTS / backports / SLA | Official |
Need safe-start / MRAP |
Official |
| Existing Upbound subscription | Official |