diff --git a/examples/runtime/srt_engine.py b/examples/runtime/srt_engine.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..7404c7e4e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/examples/runtime/srt_engine.py
@@ -0,0 +1,28 @@
+import sglang as sgl
+
+
+def main():
+    # Sample prompts.
+    prompts = [
+        "Hello, my name is",
+        "The president of the United States is",
+        "The capital of France is",
+        "The future of AI is",
+    ]
+    # Create a sampling params object.
+    sampling_params = {"temperature": 0.8, "top_p": 0.95}
+
+    # Create an LLM.
+    llm = sgl.Engine(model_path="meta-llama/Meta-Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct")
+
+    outputs = llm.generate(prompts, sampling_params)
+    # Print the outputs.
+    for prompt, output in zip(prompts, outputs):
+        print("===============================")
+        print(f"Prompt: {prompt}\nGenerated text: {output['text']}")
+
+
+# The __main__ condition is necessary here because we use "spawn" to create subprocesses
+# Spawn starts a fresh program every time, if there is no __main__, it will run into infinite loop to keep spawning processes from sgl.Engine
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    main()
diff --git a/python/sglang/__init__.py b/python/sglang/__init__.py
index 71d7bfecc..3c4457c98 100644
--- a/python/sglang/__init__.py
+++ b/python/sglang/__init__.py
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 # SGL API Components
 
 from sglang.api import (
+    Engine,
     Runtime,
     assistant,
     assistant_begin,
@@ -31,6 +32,7 @@ from sglang.lang.choices import (
 # SGLang DSL APIs
 __all__ = [
     "Runtime",
+    "Engine",
     "assistant",
     "assistant_begin",
     "assistant_end",
diff --git a/python/sglang/api.py b/python/sglang/api.py
index 4082deae1..68524363e 100644
--- a/python/sglang/api.py
+++ b/python/sglang/api.py
@@ -33,13 +33,23 @@ def function(
 
 
 def Runtime(*args, **kwargs):
-    # Avoid importing unnecessary dependency
     os.environ["TF_CPP_MIN_LOG_LEVEL"] = "3"
+
+    # Avoid importing unnecessary dependency
     from sglang.srt.server import Runtime
 
     return Runtime(*args, **kwargs)
 
 
+def Engine(*args, **kwargs):
+    os.environ["TF_CPP_MIN_LOG_LEVEL"] = "3"
+
+    # Avoid importing unnecessary dependency
+    from sglang.srt.server import Engine
+
+    return Engine(*args, **kwargs)
+
+
 def set_default_backend(backend: BaseBackend):
     global_config.default_backend = backend
 
diff --git a/python/sglang/srt/server.py b/python/sglang/srt/server.py
index 0772816c9..c708d6f45 100644
--- a/python/sglang/srt/server.py
+++ b/python/sglang/srt/server.py
@@ -19,6 +19,7 @@ SRT = SGLang Runtime.
 """
 
 import asyncio
+import atexit
 import dataclasses
 import json
 import logging
@@ -161,6 +162,7 @@ async def update_weights(obj: UpdateWeightReqInput, request: Request):
         )
 
 
+# fastapi implicitly converts json in the request to obj (dataclass)
 async def generate_request(obj: GenerateReqInput, request: Request):
     """Handle a generate request."""
     if obj.stream:
@@ -290,11 +292,13 @@ async def retrieve_file_content(file_id: str):
     return await v1_retrieve_file_content(file_id)
 
 
-def launch_server(
+def launch_engine(
     server_args: ServerArgs,
-    pipe_finish_writer: Optional[mp.connection.Connection] = None,
 ):
-    """Launch an HTTP server."""
+    """
+    Launch the Tokenizer Manager in the main process, the Scheduler in a subprocess, and the Detokenizer Manager in another subprocess.
+    """
+
     global tokenizer_manager
 
     # Configure global environment
@@ -355,6 +359,29 @@ def launch_server(
     for i in range(len(scheduler_pipe_readers)):
         scheduler_pipe_readers[i].recv()
 
+
+def launch_server(
+    server_args: ServerArgs,
+    pipe_finish_writer: Optional[mp.connection.Connection] = None,
+):
+    """
+    Launch SRT (SGLang Runtime) Server
+
+    The SRT server consists of an HTTP server and the SRT engine.
+
+    1. HTTP server: A FastAPI server that routes requests to the engine.
+    2. SRT engine:
+        1. Tokenizer Manager: Tokenizes the requests and sends them to the scheduler.
+        2. Scheduler (subprocess): Receives requests from the Tokenizer Manager, schedules batches, forwards them, and sends the output tokens to the Detokenizer Manager.
+        3. Detokenizer Manager (subprocess): Detokenizes the output tokens and sends the result back to the Tokenizer Manager.
+
+    Note:
+    1. The HTTP server and Tokenizer Manager both run in the main process.
+    2. Inter-process communication is done through ICP (each process uses a different port) via the ZMQ library.
+    """
+
+    launch_engine(server_args=server_args)
+
     # Add api key authorization
     if server_args.api_key:
         add_api_key_middleware(app, server_args.api_key)
@@ -435,7 +462,6 @@ def _wait_and_warmup(server_args, pipe_finish_writer, pid):
         return
 
     model_info = res.json()
-
     # Send a warmup request
     request_name = "/generate" if model_info["is_generation"] else "/encode"
     max_new_tokens = 8 if model_info["is_generation"] else 1
@@ -626,3 +652,46 @@ class Runtime:
 
     def __del__(self):
         self.shutdown()
+
+
+class Engine:
+    """
+    SRT Engine without an HTTP server layer.
+
+    This class provides a direct inference engine without the need for an HTTP server. It is designed for use cases where
+    launching the HTTP server adds unnecessary complexity or overhead,
+    """
+
+    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
+
+        # before python program terminates, call shutdown implicitly. Therefore, users don't have to explicitly call .shutdown()
+        atexit.register(self.shutdown)
+
+        server_args = ServerArgs(*args, **kwargs)
+        launch_engine(server_args=server_args)
+
+    def generate(
+        self,
+        prompt: Union[str, List[str]],
+        sampling_params: Optional[Dict] = None,
+        return_logprob: Optional[Union[List[bool], bool]] = False,
+        logprob_start_len: Optional[Union[List[int], int]] = None,
+        top_logprobs_num: Optional[Union[List[int], int]] = None,
+        lora_path: Optional[List[Optional[str]]] = None,
+    ):
+        obj = GenerateReqInput(
+            text=prompt,
+            sampling_params=sampling_params,
+            return_logprob=return_logprob,
+            logprob_start_len=logprob_start_len,
+            top_logprobs_num=top_logprobs_num,
+            lora_path=lora_path,
+        )
+
+        # make it synchronous
+        return asyncio.run(generate_request(obj, None))
+
+    def shutdown(self):
+        kill_child_process(os.getpid(), including_parent=False)
+
+    # TODO (ByronHsu): encode and async generate
diff --git a/test/srt/run_suite.py b/test/srt/run_suite.py
index bfa5f0cc7..6e9aaf960 100644
--- a/test/srt/run_suite.py
+++ b/test/srt/run_suite.py
@@ -19,6 +19,7 @@ suites = {
         "test_pytorch_sampling_backend.py",
         "test_server_args.py",
         "test_skip_tokenizer_init.py",
+        "test_srt_engine.py",
         "test_srt_endpoint.py",
         "test_torch_compile.py",
         "test_torchao.py",
diff --git a/test/srt/test_srt_engine.py b/test/srt/test_srt_engine.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..e9e6c9783
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/srt/test_srt_engine.py
@@ -0,0 +1,33 @@
+import json
+import unittest
+
+import sglang as sgl
+from sglang.test.test_utils import DEFAULT_MODEL_NAME_FOR_TEST
+
+
+class TestSRTBackend(unittest.TestCase):
+
+    def test_engine_runtime_consistency(self):
+        prompt = "Today is a sunny day and I like"
+        model_path = DEFAULT_MODEL_NAME_FOR_TEST
+
+        sampling_params = {"temperature": 0, "max_new_tokens": 8}
+
+        engine = sgl.Engine(model_path=model_path, random_seed=42)
+        out1 = engine.generate(prompt, sampling_params)["text"]
+        engine.shutdown()
+
+        runtime = sgl.Runtime(model_path=model_path, random_seed=42)
+        out2 = json.loads(runtime.generate(prompt, sampling_params))["text"]
+        runtime.shutdown()
+
+        print("==== Answer 1 ====")
+        print(out1)
+
+        print("==== Answer 2 ====")
+        print(out2)
+        assert out1 == out2, f"{out1} != {out2}"
+
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    unittest.main()