It depends what you mean by production and the type of project.
If you’re creating something like an NFT which essentially just requires you to make transactions, then @evertdiazb is the simplest solution.
(Note that even then, sandbox uses fast catchup in a centralized way (the catchup label is provided by Algorand Inc): for full decentralization, you want to sync from scratch or use a catchup label verified by multiple parties. That being said, API services are even more centralized from this point of view. This is something that is true for all blockchains.)
However, if you are running a full dApp that users can access and use directly (like https://tinyman.org/, https://www.algofi.org/, …), then I would strongly recommend NOT using sandbox in production.
sandbox is really just for development or for sending your own transactions (with the caveat specified above).
To move to production in such a setting, you need you need a reliable node.
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If you have expertise and capacity to run reliable infrastructure, you can run your own node. You may also use providers (see bottom of https://algorand.foundation/algorand-protocol/network).
Note that if you require very high SLA and your dApp is small, this solution is most likely too costly. -
If you do not have the expertise to run your own nodes or if it is not worth the cost, the best solution is to use an API service: Ecosystem Tools & Projects | Algorand Developer Portal. While API services have free tiers, we highly recommend you to check whether the SLA and customer service provided by the free tier match your need. For high-volume high-value projects, it is most likely necessary to pay for the API service. (This is the same on all blockchain: very high SLA and 24/7 customer services is labor intensive and is costly to achieve. See also How big can the Algorand Blockchain get before problems start occurring? - #6 by fabrice)