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Deployment

Choose the right deployment method for your environment

Overview

MCP Mesh supports multiple deployment options to fit your infrastructure needs. Whether you're developing locally or deploying to production Kubernetes clusters, MCP Mesh has you covered.

Deployment Options

Docker

Best for: Local development, testing, simple deployments

  • Quick setup with Docker Compose
  • Pre-built images available
  • Auto-generated compose files with meshctl scaffold
  • Great for development and CI/CD
# Quick start
meshctl scaffold --name my-agent --compose
docker-compose up

Docker Guide

Kubernetes

Best for: Production deployments (Recommended)

  • Production-ready Helm charts
  • Horizontal pod autoscaling
  • Built-in observability (Grafana, Tempo)
  • Multi-environment support
# Quick start (OCI registry - no helm repo add needed)
helm install mcp-registry oci://ghcr.io/dhyansraj/mcp-mesh/mcp-mesh-registry \
  --version 0.7.21 -n mcp-mesh --create-namespace

Kubernetes Guide

Quick Comparison

Feature Docker Kubernetes
Setup Complexity Easy Medium
Production Ready Limited Yes
Scaling Manual Automatic (HPA)
Observability Optional Built-in
Best Use Case Development Production

Which Should I Choose?

Use Docker if you want to:

  • Get started quickly with minimal setup
  • Develop and test locally
  • Run a simple proof-of-concept
  • Use Docker Compose for orchestration

Use Kubernetes if you want to:

  • Deploy to production
  • Scale agents independently
  • Use enterprise features (monitoring, tracing)
  • Follow GitOps practices

Recommendation

For production deployments, we strongly recommend Kubernetes with Helm charts. They include battle-tested configurations, built-in observability, and follow Kubernetes best practices.

Deployment Path

graph LR
    A[Start] --> B{Environment?}
    B -->|Local Dev| C[Docker]
    B -->|Production| D[Kubernetes]
    C -->|Scale Up| D

Next Steps