Redis vs Memcached

The in-memory Swiss Army knife that's fast enough to make your other databases blush meets the og in-memory cache that's still kicking ass, because sometimes simple and fast is all you need. Here's our take.

Redis

Nice Pick

The in-memory Swiss Army knife that's fast enough to make your other databases blush.

Pros

• Blazing fast in-memory data storage
• Versatile data structures like lists, sets, and hashes
• Built-in persistence options for durability
• Pub/sub messaging for real-time applications

Cons

• Memory can be expensive at scale
• Limited querying compared to relational databases

Memcached

The OG in-memory cache that's still kicking ass, because sometimes simple and fast is all you need.

Pros

• Blazing fast for simple key-value lookups
• Dead-simple to set up and scale horizontally
• Minimal memory overhead per item
• Widely supported across programming languages

Cons

• No persistence—data vanishes on restart
• Limited to basic operations, no complex queries or data structures

The Verdict

Use Redis if: You want blazing fast in-memory data storage and can live with memory can be expensive at scale.

Use Memcached if: You prioritize blazing fast for simple key-value lookups over what Redis offers.

The Bottom Line

Redis wins

The in-memory Swiss Army knife that's fast enough to make your other databases blush.