Azure Managed Redis
activeby Microsoft (with Redis Ltd.) · since 2025 · also known as Azure Cache for Redis, Azure Redis
Microsoft's managed Redis built on Redis Enterprise, replacing the retiring Azure Cache for Redis.
Overview
Azure Managed Redis is Microsoft's current managed Redis offering, generally available since May 2025 and built on Redis Enterprise software rather than community Redis. It comes in Memory Optimized, Balanced, Compute Optimized and Flash Optimized tiers, includes search with vectors, JSON, Bloom and time-series modules, and supports active geo-replication across regions. The older Azure Cache for Redis is being retired: Enterprise tiers on March 31, 2027 and Basic/Standard/Premium on September 30, 2028, with new instance creation already blocked. New Azure workloads should start here.
Strengths & trade-offs
Strengths
- +Redis Enterprise features (modules, active-active) without running Redis Enterprise yourself
- +Zone redundancy by default and up to 99.999% SLA with geo-replication
- +Microsoft Entra ID authentication and Private Link
- +Flash tier for cheaper large caches
Trade-offs
- −Migration required from the retiring Azure Cache for Redis tiers
- −Azure-only
- −Flash tier lacks search, Bloom and time-series modules
- −Redis version lags upstream (7.4.x)
Great for
- +Caching and session storage for Azure App Service and AKS apps
- +Vector search and semantic caching for Azure OpenAI apps
- +Globally shared leaderboards with active geo-replication
Think twice for
- −Non-Azure deployments
- −Teams wanting the newest Redis 8 features immediately
Capabilities
Native or official first-party support · 14 of 25 tracked
Scale & consistency
- Comfortable data size
- Medium · ≤ 10 TB
- Horizontal scaling
- Native
- Multi-region
- Active active
- Transactions
- Limited ACID
- Consistency
- Eventual
- Schema
- Schemaless
- Architecture
- In memory, Distributed, Primary replica
- Query languages
- Redis commands (RESP), Lua, Redis Query Engine (FT.*)
In-memory tiers up to 1.9 TB (larger sizes in preview); Flash Optimized up to 4.5 TB; active geo-replication on in-memory tiers.
Deployment
available on · Azure
Ecosystem
Alternatives to Azure Managed Redis
The in-memory data structure server that became the default cache, now with search, JSON and vectors built in.
azure-cache-for-redis vs redis →AWS's managed Valkey, Redis OSS and Memcached service, provisioned or serverless.
azure-cache-for-redis vs amazon-elasticache →Google Cloud's managed in-memory family: Valkey, Redis, Redis Cluster and Memcached.
azure-cache-for-redis vs google-memorystore →A native .NET distributed cache and data grid for Windows and Linux, with an Apache-licensed edition.
azure-cache-for-redis vs ncache →Microsoft Research's .NET cache-store that speaks RESP and scales across cores and storage tiers.
azure-cache-for-redis vs garnet →Redis Ltd.'s own managed Redis on AWS, Azure and GCP, with Active-Active geo-replication and tiering.
azure-cache-for-redis vs redis-cloud →Azure Managed Redis FAQ
What is Azure Managed Redis?
Azure Managed Redis is a key-value database by Microsoft (with Redis Ltd.), first released in 2025. Azure Managed Redis is Microsoft's current managed Redis offering, generally available since May 2025 and built on Redis Enterprise software rather than community Redis. It comes in Memory Optimized, Balanced, Compute Optimized and Flash Optimized tiers, includes search with vectors, JSON, Bloom and time-series modules, and supports active geo-replication across regions. The older Azure Cache for Redis is being retired: Enterprise tiers on March 31, 2027 and Basic/Standard/Premium on September 30, 2028, with new instance creation already blocked. New Azure workloads should start here.
Is Azure Managed Redis open source?
No. Azure Managed Redis is proprietary, closed-source software. License: Azure service terms.
Does Azure Managed Redis support ACID transactions?
Partly. Azure Managed Redis offers limited ACID guarantees (for example, single-record or single-partition transactions), with eventual consistency.
Does Azure Managed Redis scale horizontally?
Azure Managed Redis scales horizontally out of the box, with built-in sharding or partitioning. It is comfortable at medium scale (≤ 10 TB). It supports active-active multi-region writes.
How can I run Azure Managed Redis?
You can use the vendor's managed cloud. It is available on Azure.
What is Azure Managed Redis best for?
Azure Managed Redis is a strong fit for caching and session storage for Azure App Service and AKS apps; vector search and semantic caching for Azure OpenAI apps; and globally shared leaderboards with active geo-replication. Think twice for non-Azure deployments.
What are the best alternatives to Azure Managed Redis?
Common alternatives to Azure Managed Redis include Redis, Amazon ElastiCache, Google Cloud Memorystore, NCache and Microsoft Garnet. The right choice depends on your workload, scale and hosting; WhichDB's smart match ranks them against your requirements.
How popular is Azure Managed Redis?
Azure Managed Redis ranks #644 of 844 databases on the WhichDB Score (0.4/100), and #124 among key-value databases. The score combines public adoption signals such as package downloads, GitHub activity, job posts and developer discussion.