The ConfigMaps in Kubernetes are a built-in API object designed to store non-sensitive key-value config data. They allow developers to keep config values separate from their code and container images, enabling flexible deployment methods. Pods can consume ConfigMap values as environment variables, command line arguments, or mounted files. ConfigMaps are suitable for storing small amounts of simple data and are intended to be immutable, providing a performance advantage over mutable ConfigMaps. However, they are not secure enough to store sensitive values such as passwords or API keys, which should be stored in Kubernetes Secrets instead. The use of ConfigMaps and Secrets together is recommended in real-world applications.