Valkey
activeby Valkey project (Linux Foundation) · since 2024
The Linux Foundation's BSD-licensed fork of Redis, now the default engine on AWS and Google Cloud.
Overview
Valkey was forked from Redis 7.2.4 in March 2024, days after Redis left the BSD license, by maintainers from AWS, Google, Oracle, Ericsson and others under the Linux Foundation. It stays wire- and data-compatible with Redis OSS while shipping its own work: multi-threaded I/O, per-field hash TTLs, multiple databases in cluster mode (9.0) and database-level ACLs (9.1). For anyone who wants a drop-in Redis that stays permissively licensed and vendor-neutral, it is now the safe default, and ElastiCache, MemoryDB and Memorystore all lead with it.
Strengths & trade-offs
Strengths
- +Drop-in compatible with Redis OSS 7.2 clients, commands and RDB/AOF files
- +BSD-3-Clause license with open governance and no CLA-backed relicensing risk
- +Multi-threaded I/O delivers well over 1M requests/s on one node
- +Default engine for ElastiCache, MemoryDB and Memorystore, often at lower price than Redis OSS
- +Hash field expiration and database-level ACLs added beyond the original fork
Trade-offs
- −Search, JSON and Bloom features live in separate valkey-search/valkey-json/valkey-bloom modules
- −Diverging from Redis 8 commands, so new Redis-only features will not appear
- −Still memory-bound: dataset size equals RAM bill
- −Async replication can drop recent writes on failover
Great for
- +Replacing Redis OSS without license concerns
- +Application caching and session storage
- +Rate limiting, counters and leaderboards
- +Pub/sub fan-out and Streams-based queues
Think twice for
- −Durable system of record with multi-key ACID transactions
- −Datasets much larger than RAM
- −Analytical or relational queries
Capabilities
Native or official first-party support · 9 of 25 tracked
Scale & consistency
- Comfortable data size
- Medium · ≤ 10 TB
- Horizontal scaling
- Native
- Multi-region
- Read replicas
- Transactions
- Limited ACID
- Consistency
- Eventual
- Schema
- Schemaless
- Architecture
- In memory, Single node, Primary replica, Distributed, Client server
- Query languages
- Redis commands (RESP), Lua
Cluster mode shards by hash slot; 9.x scales clusters toward 2,000 nodes. All data lives in RAM.
Deployment
available on · AWS · Google Cloud · Oracle Cloud · Aiven · DigitalOcean · Akamai · Alibaba Cloud · Railway · Render
Ecosystem
Alternatives to Valkey
The in-memory data structure server that became the default cache, now with search, JSON and vectors built in.
valkey vs redis →A multi-threaded, shared-nothing in-memory store that speaks Redis and Memcached on one big box.
valkey vs dragonfly →Microsoft Research's .NET cache-store that speaks RESP and scales across cores and storage tiers.
valkey vs garnet →Snap's multi-threaded Redis fork with active-active replication and FLASH storage, now dormant.
valkey vs keydb →AWS's managed Valkey, Redis OSS and Memcached service, provisioned or serverless.
valkey vs amazon-elasticache →Google Cloud's managed in-memory family: Valkey, Redis, Redis Cluster and Memcached.
valkey vs google-memorystore →Valkey FAQ
What is Valkey?
Valkey is a key-value database by Valkey project (Linux Foundation), first released in 2024. Valkey was forked from Redis 7.2.4 in March 2024, days after Redis left the BSD license, by maintainers from AWS, Google, Oracle, Ericsson and others under the Linux Foundation. It stays wire- and data-compatible with Redis OSS while shipping its own work: multi-threaded I/O, per-field hash TTLs, multiple databases in cluster mode (9.0) and database-level ACLs (9.1). For anyone who wants a drop-in Redis that stays permissively licensed and vendor-neutral, it is now the safe default, and ElastiCache, MemoryDB and Memorystore all lead with it.
Is Valkey open source?
Yes. Valkey is open source. License: BSD 3-Clause.
Does Valkey support ACID transactions?
Partly. Valkey offers limited ACID guarantees (for example, single-record or single-partition transactions), with eventual consistency.
Does Valkey scale horizontally?
Valkey scales horizontally out of the box, with built-in sharding or partitioning. It is comfortable at medium scale (≤ 10 TB). It supports cross-region read replicas.
How can I run Valkey?
You can self-host it. Managed offerings include Amazon ElastiCache for Valkey, Memorystore for Valkey and Aiven for Valkey. It is available on AWS, Google Cloud, Oracle Cloud, Aiven and DigitalOcean.
What is Valkey best for?
Valkey is a strong fit for replacing Redis OSS without license concerns; application caching and session storage; and rate limiting, counters and leaderboards. Think twice for durable system of record with multi-key ACID transactions.
What are the best alternatives to Valkey?
Common alternatives to Valkey include Redis, Dragonfly, Microsoft Garnet, KeyDB and Amazon ElastiCache. The right choice depends on your workload, scale and hosting; WhichDB's smart match ranks them against your requirements.
How popular is Valkey?
Valkey ranks #16 of 844 databases on the WhichDB Score (58.0/100), and #3 among key-value databases. The score combines public adoption signals such as package downloads, GitHub activity, job posts and developer discussion.