SMS Schwalbe was a steam gunboat of the Jäger class built for the Prussian Navy in the late 1850s and early 1860s.

The ship was ordered as part of a program to strengthen Prussia's coastal defense forces, then oriented against neighboring Denmark.

The Jäger class of gunboats came about as a result of a program to strengthen the Prussian Navy in the late 1850s in the aftermath of the dissolution of the Reichsflotte and in the midst of rising tensions with Denmark.

On 8 December 1863, the Prussian Navy ordered the fleet to mobilize, as tensions between Prussia and Denmark over the Schleswig–Holstein question rose sharply.

She was commissioned on 1 March, under the command of Fahnrich zur See Karl August Deinhard, and assigned to II Flotilla Division.

[4] Schwalbe was recommissioned again on 27 July 1870 following the start of the Franco-Prussian War, and three days later she was moved to the North Sea via the Eider Canal.

During an inspection at the Kaiserliche Werft (Imperial Shipyard) in Kiel in 1872, Schwalbe was found to be in poor condition, and she was accordingly struck from the naval register on 19 March.