> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.swarms.world/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Deployment Solutions Overview

> Choose the right deployment strategy for your Swarms agents — from a single FastAPI process to scheduled cron jobs and beyond.

This page maps the most common ways to ship a Swarms agent to production and helps you pick the right one based on workload, complexity, and cost.

## Deployment types at a glance

| Deployment            | Use case           | Complexity | Scalability | Cost     | Best for                                                  |
| --------------------- | ------------------ | ---------- | ----------- | -------- | --------------------------------------------------------- |
| **FastAPI + Uvicorn** | REST API endpoints | Low        | Medium      | Low      | Quick prototypes, internal tools, real-time agent calls   |
| **Cron Jobs**         | Scheduled tasks    | Low        | Low         | Very low | Batch processing, periodic agents (digest, daily reports) |

Detailed walkthroughs:

* [FastAPI Agent API](/examples/fastapi-agent-api) — full guide with code, auth, rate limiting, Docker, Gunicorn.
* Cron jobs: see the runnable examples in the repo at `examples/guides/deployment/cron_job_examples/`.

## Quick-start

### 1. FastAPI + Uvicorn (REST API)

* **Best for:** exposing agents over HTTP for synchronous calls.
* **Setup time:** 5–10 minutes.
* **Walkthrough:** [FastAPI Agent API](/examples/fastapi-agent-api).
* **Reference code:** [fastapi\_agent\_api\_example.py](https://github.com/kyegomez/swarms/blob/master/examples/guides/deployment/fastapi/fastapi_agent_api_example.py)

### 2. Cron jobs (scheduled tasks)

* **Best for:** running agents on a schedule (every hour, daily summary, weekly report).
* **Setup time:** 2–5 minutes.
* **Reference code:** [cron\_job\_examples/](https://github.com/kyegomez/swarms/tree/master/examples/guides/deployment/cron_job_examples)

## Choosing a target

### Performance

* **FastAPI** — excellent for high-throughput synchronous APIs.
* **Cron jobs** — good for batch processing where latency doesn't matter.
* **Docker** — consistent performance across environments.
* **Kubernetes** — best for complex, scalable, multi-service systems.

### Security

* **FastAPI** — built-in mechanisms for auth, CORS, rate limiting.
* **Cron jobs** — runs with the system user's permissions; isolate carefully.
* **Docker** — sandboxed processes, easier to apply security patches.
* **Kubernetes** — full RBAC, network policies, secrets management.

### Monitoring & observability

* **FastAPI** — standard Python logging hooks; integrates with Prometheus, Datadog, etc.
* **Cron jobs** — basic log files; pair with a log shipper for visibility.
* **Docker** — container-level metrics via the runtime.
* **Kubernetes** — first-class metrics, alerting, and tracing.

### Cost

* **FastAPI** — pay for the compute that hosts the process.
* **Cron jobs** — minimal cost; runs on existing infrastructure.
* **Docker** — efficient resource utilisation.
* **Kubernetes** — advanced auto-scaling and resource governance.

## What to pick

| You are…                                             | Pick                                 |
| ---------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------ |
| Building an API for your agents                      | **FastAPI + Uvicorn**                |
| Running batch jobs / scheduled agents                | **Cron jobs**                        |
| Shipping to production with consistency requirements | **FastAPI + Docker**                 |
| Auto-scaling under variable load                     | **Cloud Run** or **Kubernetes**      |
| Running on existing infrastructure with minimal cost | **Cron jobs** or **Cloud Functions** |
| Building a complex multi-service platform            | **Kubernetes**                       |

## Recommended progression

1. Start with **FastAPI** if you need synchronous agent calls.
2. Add **cron jobs** for any scheduled or batch agents.
3. Move to **Docker** once you need consistent environments and easy deployment.
4. Consider **Kubernetes** once you have multiple services that need orchestration, auto-scaling, or advanced resource policies.

<Note>
  Source: [docs/deployment\_solutions/overview.md](https://github.com/kyegomez/swarms/blob/master/docs/deployment_solutions/overview.md)
</Note>

## See also

* [FastAPI Agent API](/examples/fastapi-agent-api) — step-by-step API deployment guide.
* [Agent Streaming](/examples/agent-streaming-example) — pair token streaming with FastAPI's `StreamingResponse` for real-time UX.