I mean renovate in github is 1 file and a app integration. It takes very little effort to setup. What exactly do you mean by easier integration of third party apps? Why wouldnt someone just use https://operatorhub.io/. ?

If you are not on open-shift olm and the operator hub is quite an overkill. I wrote a more detailed explanation on our website: https://glasskube.dev/docs/comparisons/olm/

Tldr.: If you are already using open shift, make use of the operator hub, else glasskube is the more lightweight and simpler solution with similar concepts.

huh? you dont need openshift to use operator hub.

kubectl create -f https://operatorhub.io/install/flink-kubernetes-operator.yam...

This custom resource will be reconciled by olm, so you need to setup olm [1] first. Also the OLM UI is only backed into OpenShift.

[1] https://operatorhub.io/how-to-install-an-operator

sure , but all the operator hubs are just wrappers of the real operator, which is published on their operator hub page, so you can use https://github.com/apache/flink-kubernetes-operator which doesnt require openshift.