Redis vs Valkey: Which In-Memory Store Fits Your Requirements

A sourced comparison of Redis Open Source 8 and Valkey 9: licences, governance, compatibility, bundled modules, availability and support, with a Decision Lab that explains which one your requirements point to.

1. How to choose

Valkey began as a continuation of Redis 7.2.4, started under the Linux Foundation in March 2024 after Redis announced a licence change . The two still share the core data structures, the RESP protocol and the persistence formats of that release , so for many workloads the choice comes down to a handful of documented differences:

  • Licence. Redis 8 and later can be used under RSALv2, SSPLv1 or AGPLv3 ; Valkey is BSD 3-Clause .
  • Governance. Valkey is run by a steering committee of its maintainers under the Linux Foundation ; Redis is licensed by Redis Ltd. .
  • What is built in. Redis 8 includes JSON, the Query Engine, time series and probabilistic types ; Valkey offers JSON, Bloom filters and search as separate official modules .
  • Where you are coming from. Valkey reads Redis 7.2 data files but not those written by Redis 7.4 and later .

This guide compares Redis Open Source 8.10.3 and Valkey 9.1.2, the latest releases on October 26, 2026 .

Redis Ltd.'s descriptions of its licence change are its own statements, and the chips mark them as such. Neither project's performance claims are used: none meets our methodology bar.

2. At a glance

One cited statement per cell. Where the two behave the same, the table says so; most of the differences are in licensing, governance, bundled features and support.

3. Origin, licence and governance

How the fork happened

Redis 7.2 and every earlier release remain under the BSD 3-Clause licence . On March 20, 2024 Redis Ltd. announced that from Redis 7.4 it would be dual-licensed under RSALv2 and SSPLv1, and no longer distributed under BSD . Redis Ltd. describes this as a response to managed-service providers using the BSD-licensed releases .

On March 28, 2024 the Linux Foundation announced Valkey, formed by contributors in response to that change, continuing from Redis 7.2.4 under the BSD 3-clause licence . Its first release candidate followed on April 16, 2024 .

Licences today

On May 1, 2025 Redis Ltd. announced AGPLv3 as an extra option from Redis 8 , and Redis 8.0.0 shipped on May 2 with the choice of RSALv2, SSPLv1 or AGPLv3 . By Redis's own account AGPLv3 is an OSI-approved open-source licence, while RSALv2 and SSPLv1 are not . Redis 7.4 to 7.8 remain under RSALv2 or SSPLv1 .

Valkey's repository licence is BSD 3-Clause, with copyright lines for Valkey contributors since 2024 and for Redis Ltd. for the inherited code .

The AGPL is a copyleft licence and RSALv2 and SSPLv1 restrict use; check them against how you distribute or offer software. The guide does not interpret licence terms beyond what each project states.

Governance

Valkey is governed by a Technical Steering Committee made up of the repository's maintainers . No organisation may hold more than one third of the seats ; technical decisions need a simple majority and governance changes a two-thirds super-majority . The nine maintainers listed work at Tencent, Apple, Percona, Amazon, Google, Oracle, Alibaba and Ericsson , and the name and logo are trademarks of LF Projects, LLC .

Redis is licensed by Redis Ltd., and no foundation governance is described on its pages ; contributors agree to the Redis Software Grant and Contributor License Agreement . Redis Ltd. says it has no plans to change the current licence configuration, a statement rather than a binding commitment . Redis creator Salvatore Sanfilippo rejoined Redis in November 2024, by the company's account .

Names and products

Redis Community Edition was renamed Redis Open Source with 8.0 , and Redis 8 replaces Redis Stack . Redis Ltd. also sells Redis Software for self-managed deployments and Redis Cloud as a managed service; both are proprietary .

4. Compatibility

Valkey says it is compatible with Redis OSS 7.2 and every earlier open-source release, because it is a fork of 7.2.4 . In practice:

  • Protocol and clients. Both speak RESP2 and RESP3 , and existing Redis client libraries connect to Valkey without code changes ; redis-cli and valkey-cli work against either server .
  • Data files. Valkey reads and writes RDB and AOF files compatible with Redis OSS 7.2 , but Redis Community Edition 7.4 and later write files Valkey cannot read .
  • Configuration. Valkey accepts Redis-style configuration files and the Redis 7.2 directives .
  • Modules and scripts. Modules written for the Redis module API run in Valkey, which adds its own API , and Lua scripts using the redis namespace keep working .

If you already run Redis 7.4 or later, moving to Valkey means migrating data some other way than copying the data files .

Where Valkey identifies itself differently

For backward compatibility Valkey's INFO output reports redis_version:7.2.4, with the real server in server_name and valkey_version . Otherwise it is largely compatible, except where it names itself Valkey rather than Redis ; a temporary extended-redis-compatibility setting, off by default, makes it present itself as Redis and is scheduled for removal .

The protocol

New Redis connections start in RESP2, and HELLO switches to RESP3 . From Redis 7 both protocol versions can call every core command . Both projects warn that a future version may change the default protocol, though RESP2 is unlikely to be fully deprecated .

Upgrades within each project

Redis describes itself as generally backward compatible ; upgrading between minor versions should not break applications, but can change persistence formats and the replication protocol . Valkey's major versions may change configuration defaults or remove deprecated commands, and replicas should be upgraded before primaries .

5. Architecture and threading

Both servers execute commands on a single main thread and are otherwise mostly single-threaded, with some operations such as UNLINK and slow I/O on side threads .

Both can move client socket reads, writes and protocol parsing to I/O threads, and both ship with that off (io-threads 1) . Redis 8.0 introduced a new I/O threading implementation . Valkey rewrote its I/O threading in 8.0 , made the thread count changeable at runtime in 9.0 and moved thread communication to lock-free queues in 9.1 .

Defaults

maxclients — 10,000 — 10,000; maxmemory — 0, no limit on 64-bit — 0, no limit on 64-bit; Eviction policy — noeviction — noeviction; Platforms — POSIX; no official Windows builds — POSIX, Linux recommended; no official Windows builds

6. Data types and modules

Both have the same core structures: strings, hashes, lists, sets, sorted sets, bitmaps, HyperLogLogs, geospatial indexes and streams . The difference is how much more ships in the box.

Redis 8: built in

Redis 8.0 made the Query Engine and eight more data structures part of Redis Open Source: JSON, time series, five probabilistic structures (Bloom and Cuckoo filters, Count-min sketch, Top-k, t-digest) and vector sets . They ship in every binary distribution , share Redis's tri-licence and carry the same version number as Redis . The Query Engine indexes hashes and JSON for vector, full-text and geospatial queries and aggregations ; vector sets are still marked beta .

Valkey: official modules

Valkey provides JSON, Bloom filters and search as official modules that must be loaded: valkey-json, valkey-bloom and valkey-search , each BSD 3-Clause . valkey-search offers vector search plus numeric, tag and full-text queries over hashes or JSON . The Valkey Bundle container image comes with JSON, Bloom, Search and LDAP preloaded .

Licensing of the extras

Redis's bundled modules are under RSALv2, SSPLv1 or AGPLv3 like Redis itself , and the proprietary Intel SVS vector optimisations can be used only under RSALv2 . Valkey's modules and the Bundle repository are BSD 3-Clause .

Recent additions

Redis 8.10 added compact hashes, which store field names once for keys sharing a schema, and commands including HIMPORT and LMOVEM . Valkey 9.0 added per-field expiration for hashes , and 9.1 added HGETDEL, MSETEX and CLUSTERSCAN and moved its Lua engine into a module .

Both can be extended with server-side Lua functions and modules .

7. Persistence, replication and availability

Persistence

Both offer RDB snapshots and an append-only file, separately or together . The shipped defaults match: RDB snapshots to dump.rdb, AOF off, and when AOF is on, fsync once a second . With RDB alone an unclean stop can lose the last few minutes of writes, and with fsync every second up to about a second .

Replication and failover

Replication is asynchronous in both , and replicas are read-only by default . WAIT asks replicas to confirm chosen writes, but Redis's own docs say it does not make Redis strongly consistent . Sentinel provides automatic failover for deployments without Cluster in both , and Redis notes that Sentinel does not guarantee acknowledged writes survive .

Neither project promises zero data loss on failover. Redis Cluster and Valkey Cluster can both lose writes they acknowledged .

Cluster

Both shard data across 16384 hash slots , replicate asynchronously and let the last failover win . A Redis cluster is unavailable on the minority side of a partition , and by default a node stops serving once the cluster is marked failed .

Redis Cluster supports only database 0 . Valkey 9.0 added numbered databases in cluster mode, configured with cluster-databases (default 1) , and atomic slot migration ; Valkey 8.0 added dual-channel replication for more efficient full syncs . Redis 8.10 added a BACKUP command built on multi-part AOF .

8. Releases and support

Both plan one major version a year . Redis usually follows a major with a minor six months later ; Valkey ships at least one minor a year .

Latest on Oct 26, 2026 — 8.10.3 (security release) — 9.1.2; 9.2.0-rc1 in pre-release; Support policy — Latest stable plus two maintenance-only versions — 3 years per minor; 5 years of security fixes for each major's last minor; Published end dates — None found for 8.x lines — Per version, e.g. 9.1 maintained to May 19, 2029

Redis's repository security policy lists 8.10, 8.8, 8.6, 8.4, 8.2 and 7.4 as supported, with 7.2 and 6.2 in extended support and 8.0 not supported , which is more lines than its release-cycle guideline describes . Security fixes are generally backported to one previous major .

Valkey's patch versions contain only backwards-compatible fixes ; it patches security issues it believes exploitable, at the steering committee's discretion , and advises against running a cluster with mixed minor versions .

Technologies

  • Redis: Compared in this guide (Redis Open Source 8.10).
  • Valkey: Compared in this guide (Valkey 9.1).

Sources

  1. LICENSE.txt (redis/redis, unstable branch) — Redis Ltd. (GitHub repository), undated (repository file, unstable branch)
  2. Redis Open Source (Operate) — Redis documentation, undated (docs, Redis 8.x)
  3. Redis data types — Redis documentation, undated (docs, Redis 8.x)
  4. Introduction to Redis — Redis documentation, undated (docs page; licence sentence appears outdated)
  5. Redis persistence — Redis documentation, undated (docs, Redis 8.x)
  6. Redis replication — Redis documentation, undated (docs, Redis 8.x)
  7. WAIT (command reference) — Redis documentation, undated (docs, Redis 8.x)
  8. High availability with Redis Sentinel — Redis documentation, undated (docs, Redis 8.x)
  9. Redis cluster specification — Redis documentation, undated (docs, Redis 8.x)
  10. Scale with Redis Cluster — Redis documentation, undated (docs, Redis 8.x)
  11. HELLO (command reference) — Redis documentation, undated (docs, Redis 8.x)
  12. README.md (redis/redis, unstable branch) — Redis Ltd. (GitHub repository), undated (repository file, unstable branch)
  13. Redis serialization protocol specification — Redis documentation, undated (docs, Redis 8.x)
  14. Key eviction — Redis documentation, undated (docs, Redis 8.x)
  15. Redis client handling — Redis documentation, undated (docs, Redis 8.x)
  16. Diagnosing latency issues — Redis documentation, undated (docs, Redis 8.x)
  17. Release Cycle — Redis release cycle — Redis Ltd. (redis.io), undated (current page)
  18. Redis Open Source release notes — Redis documentation, undated (docs, lists up to v8.10.0)
  19. Redis Open Source and modules release notes — Redis documentation, undated (page marked deprecated)
  20. Release 8.0.0 — Redis Ltd. (GitHub releases), 2025-05-02
  21. Release 7.4.0 — Redis Ltd. (GitHub releases), 2024-07-29
  22. Releases — redis/redis — Redis Ltd. (GitHub releases), undated (listing, latest entries 2026-10-26)
  23. redis.conf (self-documented default configuration, unstable branch) — Redis Ltd. (GitHub repository), undated (repository file, unstable branch)
  24. SECURITY.md — Security Policy — Redis Ltd. (GitHub repository), undated (repository file, unstable branch)
  25. Release 8.10.3 — Redis Ltd. (GitHub releases), 2026-10-26
  26. Release 8.10.0 — Redis Ltd. (GitHub releases), 2026-07-29
  27. Licenses — Redis Licensing Overview — Redis Ltd. (redis.io legal), undated (current page)
  28. Redis Adopts Dual Source-Available Licensing — Redis Ltd. (company blog; company statement), 2024-03-20
  29. Redis is now available under the AGPLv3 open source license — Redis Ltd. (company blog; company statement), 2025-05-01
  30. COPYING (licence file) — Valkey project (GitHub repository), undated (unstable branch)
  31. Valkey 9.1 release notes — Valkey project (GitHub repository), 2026-03-17 to 2026-08-31 (9.1.0-rc1 to 9.1.2)
  32. Linux Foundation Launches Open Source Valkey Community — The Linux Foundation, 2024-03-28
  33. Valkey Community Announces Release Candidate Amid Growing Support for Open Source Data Store — The Linux Foundation, 2024-04-16
  34. Valkey (home page) — Valkey project (valkey.io), undated
  35. History — Valkey documentation, undated (page marked under review)
  36. Releases and versioning schema — Valkey documentation, undated (lists 9.1 as newest supported)
  37. Download — Valkey project (valkey.io), undated (shows 9.1.2)
  38. Migration from Redis to Valkey — Valkey documentation, undated
  39. Introduction — Valkey documentation, undated
  40. Data types — Valkey documentation, undated
  41. Project Governance — Valkey project (GitHub repository), undated (unstable branch)
  42. Valkey Bundle Getting Started Guide — Valkey documentation, undated
  43. Valkey JSON — Valkey documentation, undated
  44. Bloom Filters — Valkey documentation, undated
  45. Valkey Search - Overview — Valkey documentation, undated
  46. FAQ — Valkey documentation, undated
  47. Persistence — Valkey documentation, undated
  48. Replication — Valkey documentation, undated
  49. Cluster tutorial — Valkey documentation, undated
  50. Cluster specification — Valkey documentation, undated
  51. High availability with Valkey Sentinel — Valkey documentation, undated
  52. MAINTAINERS.md — Valkey project (GitHub repository), undated (unstable branch)
  53. Serialization protocol specification — Valkey documentation, undated
  54. Key eviction — Valkey documentation, undated
  55. Client handling — Valkey documentation, undated
  56. valkey-json LICENSE — Valkey project (GitHub repository), undated (unstable branch)
  57. valkey-bloom LICENSE — Valkey project (GitHub repository), undated (main branch)
  58. valkey-search LICENSE — Valkey project (GitHub repository), undated (main branch)
  59. valkey-bundle LICENSE — Valkey project (GitHub repository), undated (main branch)
  60. valkey-ldap LICENSE — Valkey project (GitHub repository), undated (main branch)
  61. SECURITY.md — Valkey project (GitHub repository), undated (unstable branch)
  62. README — Valkey project (GitHub repository), undated (unstable branch)
  63. valkey.conf (example configuration) — Valkey project (GitHub repository), undated (unstable branch)
  64. src/config.c (configuration table with defaults) — Valkey project (GitHub repository), undated (unstable branch)
  65. Releases · valkey-io/valkey — Valkey project (GitHub), undated (listing, latest 9.2.0-rc1)
  66. Valkey 8.0 release notes — Valkey project (GitHub repository), 2024-08-01 to 2026-08-31 (8.0.0-rc1 to 8.0.11)
  67. Valkey 9.0 release notes — Valkey project (GitHub repository), 2025-08-14 to 2026-09-01 (9.0.0-rc1 to 9.0.6)