vs

Dragonfly vs Microsoft Garnet

Dragonfly: A multi-threaded, shared-nothing in-memory store that speaks Redis and Memcached on one big box. Microsoft Garnet: Microsoft Research's .NET cache-store that speaks RESP and scales across cores and storage tiers.

key differences

  • Licensing: Dragonfly is source-available (Business Source License 1.1); Microsoft Garnet is open source (permissive) (MIT License).
  • Only Dragonfly has secondary indexes, full-text search, json, streaming ingest.
  • Microsoft Garnet can run embedded in your application process.

choose dragonfly for

  • +Consolidating many Redis shards onto fewer large instances
  • +High-throughput caching and session storage
  • +BullMQ / Sidekiq style queue backends
  • +Replacing Memcached and Redis with one engine

best at · Cache, Sessions, Queue

choose garnet for

  • +Redis-compatible caching for .NET-heavy stacks
  • +High-throughput caches that need an SSD spill tier
  • +Embedding a cache-store inside a .NET service

best at · Cache, Sessions, Pub/Sub

overview
Primary model
Key-Value
Key-Value
Also supports
Document, Vector, Search Engine
Vector
Type
Database engine
Database engine
Status
Active
Active
Developer
DragonflyDB Ltd.
Microsoft Research
First release
2022
2024
Latest version
2.0.2 (Oct 7, 2026)
2.2.4 (Oct 22, 2026)
License
Source-availableBusiness Source License 1.1
Open source (permissive)MIT License
Free tier
✓
✓
popularity
WhichDB Score
20.7
7.8
Rank
#150
#336
GitHub stars
31.8K
12.1K
Stack Overflow questions
–
–
scale & guarantees
Comfortable data size
Medium (≤ 10 TB)
Medium (≤ 10 TB)
Horizontal scaling
Native
Native
Multi-region
Read replicas
None
ACID
Limited
Limited
Consistency
Eventual
Eventual
Schema
Schemaless
Schemaless
Architecture
In memory, Single node, Primary replica, Client server
In memory, Single node, Primary replica, Distributed, Client server
deployment
Self-hosted
✓
✓
Vendor-managed cloud
✓
—
Serverless
—
—
Embedded
—
✓
Edge
—
—
Clouds
AWS, Google Cloud, Azure
–
capabilities
Transactions
✓
✓
Joins
—
—
Secondary indexes
✓
—
Full-text search
✓
—
Vector search
✓
✓
Geospatial
✓
✓
JSON
✓
—
Change data capture
—
—
Triggers
—
—
Stored procedures
✓
✓
Materialized views
—
—
TTL / expiry
✓
✓
Pub/Sub
✓
✓
Columnar storage
—
—
In-memory
✓
✓
Durable persistence
✓
✓
Compression
—
—
Encryption at rest
—
—
Role-based access
✓
✓
Time travel
—
—
Branching
—
—
Online schema changes
—
—
Streaming ingest
✓
—
Offline sync
—
—
Runs in WebAssembly
—
—
interfaces
Query languages
Redis commands (RESP), Memcached protocol, Lua
Redis commands (RESP), Lua, C# stored procedures
Client languages
Python, Java, JavaScript, Go, C#, Rust, Ruby, PHP
Python, Java, JavaScript, Go, C#, Rust, Ruby, PHP
Best for
Cache, Sessions, Queue, Pub/Sub
Cache, Sessions, Pub/Sub, Vector search

Dragonfly vs Microsoft Garnet: FAQ

What is the difference between Dragonfly and Microsoft Garnet?

Dragonfly: A multi-threaded, shared-nothing in-memory store that speaks Redis and Memcached on one big box. Microsoft Garnet: Microsoft Research's .NET cache-store that speaks RESP and scales across cores and storage tiers. Licensing: Dragonfly is source-available (Business Source License 1.1); Microsoft Garnet is open source (permissive) (MIT License). Only Dragonfly has secondary indexes, full-text search, json, streaming ingest. Microsoft Garnet can run embedded in your application process.

When should I choose Dragonfly over Microsoft Garnet?

Choose Dragonfly for consolidating many Redis shards onto fewer large instances; high-throughput caching and session storage; and BullMQ / Sidekiq style queue backends. Choose Microsoft Garnet for redis-compatible caching for .NET-heavy stacks, high-throughput caches that need an SSD spill tier and embedding a cache-store inside a .NET service.

Is Dragonfly or Microsoft Garnet more popular?

Dragonfly ranks #150 on the WhichDB Score (20.7/100) and Microsoft Garnet ranks #336 (7.8/100). Popularity is not fit: check the requirements that matter for your project.

Are Dragonfly and Microsoft Garnet open source?

Not in the OSI sense. Dragonfly is source-available: you can read the code, but the license restricts some uses, typically offering it as a competing managed service. License: Business Source License 1.1. Yes. Microsoft Garnet is open source. License: MIT License.