Redis
Redis is an in-memory data structure store commonly used as a cache, database and message broker, known for very low-latency reads and writes. Its licensing has changed several times: from the original 3-clause BSD license, through Commons Clause and Redis Source Available License phases, to a dual source-available licensing model adopted in March 2024, meaning current versions of Redis itself are not fully open source. Redis Cloud, the managed service, has a free plan and usage-based paid plans starting around $5 a month.
Facts checked on against the sources listed at the end of this page.
- Pricing
- FreemiumPaid from about $0.007 an hour, with a $5 a month minimum, for the Essentials plan
- Open source
- NoDual source-available license (not a traditional open source license as of the 2024 change)
- GitHub stars
- 76,634
- npm downloads a week
- 17Mup 8% on the week before
- Latest release
- 8.10.22 weeks ago
- Releases in 90 days
- 5about 2 a month
A good fit for
- Caching to speed up reads in front of a slower primary database
- Real-time features like leaderboards, rate limiting and session storage
- Pub/sub messaging and lightweight queues between services
- Teams that want a managed cloud option (Redis Cloud) rather than operating Redis themselves
Not a good fit for
- Teams that specifically need a permissively licensed, traditionally open source in-memory store, given Redis's move to a source-available license in 2024, where a fork like Valkey may fit better
- Very large primary datasets that don't fit comfortably in memory, without using auto-tiering features
- Applications that need complex relational queries, joins or strong ACID guarantees across many tables
Redis pricing
Redis Cloud's Free plan covers up to 30 MB of storage on a shared deployment. Essentials starts from about $0.007 an hour with a $5 a month minimum, covering 250 MB to 100 GB. Pro starts from about $0.014 an hour with a $200 a month minimum (first $200 free) and offers dedicated deployment with unlimited RAM and multi-region options.
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 30 MB storage, shared deployment, community support. |
| Essentials | From $0.007 an hour, $5 a month minimum | 250 MB to 100 GB RAM and SSD, SAML SSO, RBAC, encryption, up to 99.99% uptime. |
| Pro | From $0.014 an hour, $200 a month minimum (first $200 free) | Unlimited RAM, dedicated deployment, Active-Active multi-region, private connectivity, up to 99.999% uptime. |
Prices in USD, checked on 27 September 2026. Current prices on redis.io.
Main features
- In-memory data structures
- Strings, lists, sets, sorted sets, hashes and streams, all served from memory for low latency.
- Pub/sub and streams
- Built-in messaging patterns for real-time event distribution between services.
- Persistence options
- Optional disk persistence (snapshotting or append-only logs) so data survives a restart.
- Redis Cloud
- Managed hosting on AWS, Azure or Google Cloud, from a free tier up to dedicated Pro deployments.
- Active-Active replication
- Multi-region, multi-write replication available on Redis Cloud Pro.
- Redis Flex
- Auto-tiering between RAM and SSD to lower storage costs for larger datasets on Redis Cloud.
About Redis
Redis stores data in memory for very fast reads and writes, and is commonly used as a cache in front of a slower primary database, as a message broker for pub/sub or queues, or as a primary data store for use cases like session storage, leaderboards and rate limiting.
It supports data structures beyond simple key-value pairs, including lists, sets, sorted sets, hashes and streams, along with features like pub/sub messaging, Lua scripting and, in Redis Cloud, active-active multi-region replication.
Redis Cloud is the company's managed service, running on AWS, Azure or Google Cloud, with a free tier for small projects, an Essentials tier for single-database production use, and a Pro tier for larger, dedicated deployments with features like auto-tiering and private connectivity.
- Made by
- Redis (company)
- Free plan
- Yes: Redis Cloud's free tier includes up to 30 MB of storage on a shared deployment
- Available on
- Self-hosted, Redis Cloud (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud), Client libraries for most major languages
Usage and activity
Weekly npm downloads of redis, last 12 months.
Recent releases
Redis alternatives
Redis compared
RedisvsSupabase
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RedisvsFirebase
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RedisvsNeon
Neon is a serverless Postgres database platform that separates storage and compute so databases scale to zero when idle, with instant copy-on-write branching for development and testing.
Questions about Redis
Is Redis open source?
Not in the traditional sense as of its March 2024 licensing change, which moved Redis to a dual source-available license. Earlier versions and some forks, such as Valkey, remain under permissive open source licenses.
Does Redis have a free plan?
Yes, Redis Cloud's free tier includes up to 30 MB of storage on a shared deployment. Paid plans start around $5 a month for Essentials.
What is Redis commonly used for?
Caching, session storage, real-time leaderboards, rate limiting, and pub/sub messaging, thanks to its low-latency, in-memory data structures.
Can I self-host Redis instead of using Redis Cloud?
Yes, Redis can be self-hosted, though the license terms for the version you use should be checked given the licensing changes since 2018.
Sources and links
Work on Redis? Claim this listing. Something wrong or out of date? Suggest a correction. Stats come from the public GitHub and npm APIs and update every day.