Source: https://gameye.com/glossary/agones/ --- title: "What Is Agones? Kubernetes Game Server Orchestration" description: "Agones is an open-source Kubernetes extension (from Google and Ubisoft) for hosting dedicated game servers. How it works — and the DIY trade-offs." --- # Agones **Agones** is an open-source platform for running [dedicated game servers](https://gameye.com/glossary/dedicated-server/) on Kubernetes. It is the most widely used open-source Kubernetes game server orchestration tool: it extends Kubernetes with the building blocks specific to multiplayer games — starting servers on demand, allocating them to matches, scaling fleets up and down, and tearing them down when a match ends. It was originally created by Google and Ubisoft and is now developed in the open by a wider community. ## How Agones handles game server orchestration on Kubernetes Agones installs into a Kubernetes cluster and adds a set of Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs): - **GameServer** — a single running game server instance, wrapped as a Kubernetes pod. - **Fleet** — a pool of identical GameServers that Agones keeps warm and scales. - **GameServerAllocation** — how a matchmaker claims a ready server for a match. - **FleetAutoscaler** — rules that grow or shrink the fleet as demand changes. Your game server also embeds the **Agones SDK**, which runs alongside the binary and reports state back to Agones — calling `Ready()` when the server can host, `Health()` for liveness, and `Shutdown()` at the end. This SDK integration is mandatory: Agones can’t manage a server that doesn’t speak its protocol. ## Who makes Agones? Agones was announced in 2018 by Google Cloud and Ubisoft as an open-source answer to running game servers on Kubernetes. It is free software, actively maintained, and backed by a substantial community rather than a single vendor. Because it’s open source there is no license fee — the cost is the infrastructure it runs on and the engineering time to operate it. ## What Agones doesn’t do for you Agones gives you the orchestration primitives. It does not give you a managed service. To run it in production you (or your DevOps team) own: - **The Kubernetes clusters** — provisioning, node upgrades, networking, and one cluster per region. - **The SDK integration** — embedding and maintaining the Agones SDK in every game server build. - **Scaling policy** — tuning autoscalers, buffer sizes, and node pools so capacity is ready before players are. - **Reliability** — Agones runs on a single cluster per region, so a cluster or zone outage takes that region down unless you build multi-cluster federation yourself. - **On-call** — clusters fail, nodes get evicted, controllers crash; someone owns the pager. That’s the trade-off: Agones gives you maximum control and no license cost, but the total cost of ownership includes a Kubernetes-capable team. It’s a strong fit for studios that already run Kubernetes and want to own the stack end to end. ## Agones vs. a managed orchestrator The alternative to running Agones yourself is a managed [game server orchestration](https://gameye.com/glossary/game-server-orchestration/) platform that exposes the same capabilities — on-demand starts, allocation, autoscaling, teardown — through an API, with no cluster to operate and no SDK in your binary. Gameye is one such platform: your server runs as a plain Docker container, and a single REST call places a session across [bare-metal and cloud providers](https://gameye.com/how-it-works/) in seconds. You trade some low-level control for not operating Kubernetes. For a side-by-side breakdown of control, SDK overhead, reliability, and total cost of ownership, see [Gameye vs. Agones](https://gameye.com/gameye-vs-agones/). ## Frequently asked questions **What is Agones?** Agones is an open-source Kubernetes extension for hosting and scaling dedicated multiplayer game servers. It adds game-specific resources — GameServer, Fleet, allocation, autoscaling — to Kubernetes and requires the Agones SDK in each game server binary. **Who created Agones?** Agones was created by Google and Ubisoft, announced in 2018, and is maintained as a community-driven open-source project. It is free to use; you pay only for the underlying infrastructure and the engineering to run it. **Is Agones free?** The software is free and open source, but running it is not. You pay for the cloud or bare-metal infrastructure it runs on and for the engineering time to operate the Kubernetes clusters, integrate the SDK, and handle on-call. **What is the difference between Agones and a managed orchestrator?** Agones gives you orchestration primitives that you run yourself on Kubernetes, including embedding its SDK in your server. A managed orchestrator like Gameye provides the same on-demand placement, scaling, and teardown through a REST API — with no Kubernetes cluster to operate and no SDK in your binary. Building a multiplayer game? Gameye hosts dedicated game servers: ship your server as a Docker container and start one per match with a single API call, in a region near your players. [See how it works →](https://gameye.com/how-it-works/) [Back to Glossary](https://gameye.com/glossary/) ## Related terms - ### Game Server Orchestration Game server orchestration automates server management — session scheduling, scaling, placement, health monitoring, and failover via a single control layer. [Read more](https://gameye.com/glossary/game-server-orchestration/) - ### Orchestrator An orchestrator automates game server lifecycle — starting sessions on demand, placing them in the optimal region, and shutting them down when matches end. [Read more](https://gameye.com/glossary/orchestrator/) - ### Containers A container is a packaged, portable software unit. For game servers, it’s your entire server build — easy to deploy, replicate, and roll back. [Read more](https://gameye.com/glossary/containers/) - ### Dedicated Server A dedicated server is a remote machine that runs your game logic independently of any player's client — the authoritative source of truth for every match. [Read more](https://gameye.com/glossary/dedicated-server/) - ### Auto scaling Auto scaling starts new game server instances as player load rises and releases them when demand drops — no manual intervention required. [Read more](https://gameye.com/glossary/auto-scaling/)