What is Valkey?

Redis is a widely-used database technology among developers, with companies like Niantic, HackerRank, Airbnb, Hulu, and OpenAI using it to improve performance and reliability during high-traffic events. In 2024, Redis shifted its licensing plans, leading some corporate contributors to fork the code and create Valkey, an open-source alternative. Both Redis and Valkey offer in-memory data stores and caches that developers can use for key-value pair storage, allowing for high processing speeds. Companies comparing the two should consider each product's features, precedent, and trajectory to make informed decisions. While there is significant overlap between the two, they have begun to diverge in terms of feature sets, functionality, capabilities, contributors, and more. Valkey has a range of use cases, including session caching, message queuing, and real-time updates, but lacks some features provided by Redis. Companies should weigh the pros and cons of each product based on their specific needs.