---
title: "Deploy Tempo on Kubernetes | Grafana Tempo documentation"
description: "Instructions for deploying Tempo on Kubernetes"
---

> For a curated documentation index, see [llms.txt](/llms.txt). For the complete documentation index, see [llms-full.txt](/llms-full.txt).

# Deploy Tempo on Kubernetes

Kubernetes manages distributed deployments and provides orchestration for containerized applications.

Kubernetes offers several deployment options for Tempo:

- **Helm charts**: Package manager approach for installation and configuration
- **Tempo Operator**: Kubernetes-native operator for managing Tempo deployments
- **Tanka/Jsonnet**: Configuration management using Jsonnet templating
- **Kubernetes manifests**: Direct YAML configuration files

Choose the method that best fits your Kubernetes workflow and operational requirements.

> Note
> 
> Grafana Tempo doesn’t come with any included authentication layer. You must run an authenticating reverse proxy in front of your services to prevent unauthorized access to Tempo (for example, nginx). [Manage authentication](/docs/tempo/next/operations/authentication/) for more details

## Helm

Helm charts are available in the `grafana-community/helm-charts` repository:

- [monolithic mode](https://github.com/grafana/helm-charts/tree/main/charts/tempo)
- [microservices mode](https://github.com/grafana-community/helm-charts/tree/main/charts/tempo-distributed) and [`tempo-distributed` chart documentation](/docs/helm-charts/tempo-distributed/next/)

In addition, several Helm chart examples are available in the Tempo repository.

### Kubernetes Tempo Operator

The operator is available in [grafana/tempo-operator](https://github.com/grafana/tempo-operator) repository. The operator reconciles `TempoStack` resource to deploy and manage Tempo microservices installation.

Refer to the [operator documentation](../kubernetes/operator/) for more details.

### Tanka/Jsonnet

The Jsonnet files that you need to deploy Tempo with Tanka are available here:

- [monolithic mode](https://github.com/grafana/tempo/tree/main/operations/jsonnet/single-binary)
- [microservices mode](https://github.com/grafana/tempo/tree/main/operations/jsonnet/microservices)

Here are a few [examples](https://github.com/grafana/tempo/tree/main/example/tk) that use official Jsonnet files. They display the full range of configurations available to Tempo.

Refer to [Deploy on Kubernetes with Tanka](/docs/tempo/next/set-up-for-tracing/setup-tempo/deploy/kubernetes/tanka/) for an example installation using Tanka.

### Kubernetes manifests

You can find a collection of Kubernetes manifests to deploy Tempo in the [operations/jsonnet-compiled](https://github.com/grafana/tempo/tree/main/operations/jsonnet-compiled) folder. These are generated using the Tanka/Jsonnet.