diff --git a/Dockerfile b/Dockerfile
index d452c54..38cc44c 100644
--- a/Dockerfile
+++ b/Dockerfile
@@ -28,8 +28,8 @@ ENV \
     PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE=1 \
     HOME="/srv/rfam-batch-search"
 
-# create folders
-RUN mkdir -p $HOME && mkdir /var/log/gunicorn
+# create folder and log file
+RUN mkdir -p $HOME && touch /var/log/gunicorn.log
 
 # create user
 RUN useradd -m -d $HOME -s /bin/bash rfam
@@ -43,10 +43,10 @@ RUN pip install --no-cache-dir -r requirements.txt
 
 # copy project
 COPY . .
-RUN chown -R rfam:rfam /srv && chown -R rfam:rfam /var/log/gunicorn
+RUN chown -R rfam:rfam /srv && chown rfam:rfam /var/log/gunicorn.log
 
 # set user
 USER rfam
 
 # run the FastAPI app
-CMD [ "gunicorn", "-c", "gunicorn/gunicorn_conf.py", "-b", "0.0.0.0:8000", "main:app"]
+CMD [ "gunicorn", "-k", "uvicorn.workers.UvicornWorker", "-w", "4", "-b", "0.0.0.0:8000", "--capture-output", "--access-logfile", "-", "--error-logfile", "/var/log/gunicorn.log", "main:app"]
diff --git a/main.py b/main.py
index bf68ecc..e2e9b5e 100755
--- a/main.py
+++ b/main.py
@@ -1,8 +1,10 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env python3
 import aiosmtplib
 import asyncio
+import logging
 import os
 import typing as ty
+import uvicorn
 
 from dotenv import load_dotenv
 from email.mime.multipart import MIMEMultipart
@@ -18,7 +20,7 @@
 )
 from fastapi.middleware.cors import CORSMiddleware
 from fastapi.responses import PlainTextResponse
-import uvicorn
+from logging.handlers import RotatingFileHandler
 
 from rfam_batch import job_dispatcher as jd
 from rfam_batch import api
@@ -45,6 +47,25 @@
 # Load environment variables from .env file
 load_dotenv()
 
+# Configure logging
+log_formatter = logging.Formatter("%(asctime)s %(levelname)s %(module)s: %(message)s")
+root_logger = logging.getLogger()
+
+# Log to stdout
+stdout_handler = logging.StreamHandler()
+stdout_handler.setFormatter(log_formatter)
+root_logger.addHandler(stdout_handler)
+
+# Log to file
+file_handler = RotatingFileHandler(
+    filename="/var/log/gunicorn.log", maxBytes=1000000, backupCount=5
+)
+file_handler.setFormatter(log_formatter)
+root_logger.addHandler(file_handler)
+
+# Set log level
+root_logger.setLevel(logging.INFO)
+
 
 @app.on_event("shutdown")
 async def on_shutdown() -> None: