Cluster Scalability: Redis Gossip vs. Dragonfly Orchestration

The blog post discusses two horizontally scalable solutions for handling large in-memory workloads, Redis Cluster and Dragonfly Cluster. Both systems share similarities in architecture, including sharding and slot assignment strategies. However, the key difference lies in their communication strategies. Redis Cluster uses a gossip protocol where each instance independently manages its communication with others, which becomes less efficient as the system scales. In contrast, Dragonfly Cluster employs an orchestrated approach using a centralized control plane to manage inter-instance coordination and communication. This design enables better scalability and resource optimization, making it ideal for large, complex deployments. The post also highlights that while Redis Cluster has practical limits due to its gossip protocol, Dragonfly Cluster aims to overcome these limitations with optimized resource usage for network, CPU, and memory.