Cloud Parts

Agones

Runs dedicated multiplayer game servers on Kubernetes: keeps a fleet of them warm, hands one to each match, and never kills a server while players are on it.

What it is
Container orchestration
Part of
Built on Kubernetes
Type
Open source
Made by
Google (with Ubisoft as founding contributor)
License
Apache 2.0
Facts checked
6 October 2026
Website Source code

What it is

A dedicated game server is an odd workload. It holds a whole match in memory, lives for minutes or hours rather than months, and players connect straight to its IP address and port, because a load balancer would add latency and split players who must share one simulation. Agones teaches Kubernetes about this with custom resources and a controller. A GameServer is a Pod plus a host port (picked dynamically by default) and a lifecycle state; a Fleet keeps a number of them warm, with rolling updates; a FleetAutoscaler keeps a buffer of Ready servers above however many are in use.

The flow follows a match. The game server process calls the Agones SDK’s Ready() once it can take players. A matchmaker then creates a GameServerAllocation, which atomically picks a Ready server matching its filters, marks it Allocated and returns its address and port. Allocated servers are left alone by scale-down and fleet updates until the process calls Shutdown() at the end of the match. The SDK is a thin client for a sidecar that Agones runs next to each server, with versions for Unreal Engine, Unity, C++, Go, C#, Node.js and Rust, plus a REST interface.

Google and Ubisoft announced Agones in March 2018, and it lives in Google’s googleforgames organisation on GitHub. Version 1.0 shipped in September 2019, and in 2026 it put out a minor release about every six weeks. Google Cloud also sold Agones as a managed service, Game Servers (beta in March 2020, generally available that August), but that product has been retired: its documentation now redirects to Google Cloud’s games page, which points to Agones itself.

Why teams pick it

  • Purpose-built lifecycle: warm fleets, atomic allocation, and no scale-down or rollout of servers with players on them
  • Game servers and the services around them (accounts, inventory, matchmaking) run on one platform with standard Kubernetes tools
  • Runs wherever Kubernetes runs: any cloud, on-premises, or a developer laptop
  • Mature and steadily released: version 1.0 in 2019 and a minor release roughly every six weeks

Watch out for

  • Players connect directly to node IPs and host ports, so nodes need public addresses and open port ranges
  • It allocates servers but doesn’t match players: you bring a matchmaker (Google’s Open Match is one option)
  • An Allocated server is only removed when the game calls Shutdown() (or someone deletes it), so a server that never exits keeps holding capacity
  • The managed Google Cloud Game Servers offering is gone, so you operate the cluster and Agones yourself

More of the Kubernetes family

What all container orchestration have in common →
KlutchOpen sourceBuilt on itA young open-source control plane, built on Crossplane, that lets many application clusters order databases from one central Kubernetes cluster.Amazon EKSAWSManaged servicesAWS runs the Kubernetes control plane for you; you choose how much of the worker side to hand over too.Azure Kubernetes ServiceAzureManaged servicesMicrosoft’s managed Kubernetes: a control plane that can be free, node pools of Azure VMs, and an Automatic mode that runs the nodes too.Google Kubernetes EngineGoogle CloudManaged servicesGoogle’s managed Kubernetes, the oldest one: Google runs the control plane, and in Autopilot mode the nodes too.K3sOpen sourceDistributionsA certified Kubernetes distribution in one small binary, built for edge, IoT and other places where a full cluster is too heavy, with SQLite or embedded etcd for state.MicroK8sOpen sourceDistributionsCanonical’s Kubernetes in one snap package: installs with one command on Linux, forms a highly available cluster by itself at three nodes, and adds features as addons.Red Hat OpenShiftCommercialDistributionsRed Hat’s Kubernetes platform: Kubernetes plus its own OS, operators that install and upgrade everything, and stricter security defaults, sold by subscription.RKE2Open sourceDistributionsSUSE’s security-focused Kubernetes distribution: one binary per node, hardened defaults, FIPS-validated crypto and close alignment with upstream.Talos LinuxOpen sourceDistributionsA Linux distribution that only runs Kubernetes: immutable, minimal, with no shell or SSH, and managed entirely through an API.kindOpen sourceFor local developmentKubernetes IN Docker: each cluster node is a container, so a conformant multi-node cluster starts and disappears inside a CI job.minikubeOpen sourceFor local developmentA local Kubernetes cluster for developers on Linux, macOS or Windows, in a container, a VM or on the host itself, with laptop-friendly extras.kubeadmOpen sourceToolsThe official tool for turning Linux machines you already have into a Kubernetes cluster: `kubeadm init`, then `kubeadm join`.RancherOpen sourceToolsSUSE’s open-source control plane for fleets of Kubernetes clusters: one place to create, import, secure and upgrade them.

How it fits with other technologies

A fleet of warm game servers, then an allocation for one match · yaml

apiVersion: agones.dev/v1
kind: Fleet
metadata:
  name: arena
spec:
  replicas: 10            # GameServers kept Ready or Allocated
  scheduling: Packed      # bin-pack, so empty nodes can be removed
  template:
    spec:
      ports:
        - name: default
          portPolicy: Dynamic   # Agones picks a free host port
          containerPort: 7654
      template:
        spec:
          containers:
            - name: arena
              image: registry.example.com/arena-server:2.3
---
apiVersion: allocation.agones.dev/v1
kind: GameServerAllocation   # created by the matchmaker per match
spec:
  selectors:
    - matchLabels:
        agones.dev/fleet: arena

See it in a real stack

No architecture uses Agones yet. Drop it into the playground and wire it up yourself.Open playground →
Where it came from2018–2026

Fast-paced online games such as shooters, MOBAs and MMOs need a dedicated server that runs the authoritative copy of each match. Studios usually built their own systems to start, place and scale those servers, because general orchestrators assumed long-running, load-balanced services, not short-lived stateful processes that players connect to directly.

Google Cloud and Ubisoft announced Agones on March 13, 2018, its name coming from the Greek for “contest” or “gathering”. Instead of a separate game server manager, it extended Kubernetes with a GameServer resource and a controller, so any matchmaker could request a server through the Kubernetes API. The first release, v0.1, was an alpha; Fleets were the next feature planned.

Version 1.0 arrived in September 2019. In 2020 Google Cloud launched Game Servers, a managed service built on Agones, but the product was later retired, leaving the open-source project as the way to use it.

Why it’s built this way

Extend Kubernetes rather than build a new scheduler
Studios could run game servers and their supporting services on one platform, reuse Kubernetes tooling and the work of its contributors, and run it anywhere from a laptop to multiple clouds.
Direct IP and port, no load balancer
Players in a match share one in-memory simulation and are sensitive to latency, so they connect straight to the server process; Agones allocates host ports and reports the address back.
An SDK inside the game server
Only the game knows when it is ready for players, healthy, or finished. The SDK reports those moments, so Agones never removes a server mid-match.
Allocation as an atomic API call
Two matchmakers must never get the same server. A GameServerAllocation picks a Ready server and marks it Allocated in one step.

Timeline

  1. 2018

    Announced by Google Cloud and Ubisoft on March 13; v0.1 alpha

  2. 2019

    Version 1.0 released in September

  3. 2020

    Google Cloud Game Servers, a managed Agones service, enters beta in March and GA in August

  4. 2023

    Game Servers product pages redirect to Google Cloud’s games solutions page

  5. 2026

    v1.61.0 in September, on a roughly six-week release cadence

Sources10 · facts checked 6 October 2026

Improve this page on GitHub