Redis vs
Memorystore: Don’t settle for less

Redis Enterprise was the former name for the enterprise-grade version of Redis. It offers superior capabilities compared to Redis Community Edition, source available Redis, open source Redis, Redis OSS, Redis core, Redis forks, and Redis substitutes like KeyDB, Valkey, and Dragonfly DB making it the ideal choice for developers seeking advanced performance, security, and scalability. With automated operations, a built-in proxy, and robust query & search features, Redis Enterprise enables faster and more reliable apps. Optimize your data management with Redis Enterprise for enhanced efficiency and innovation. Explore the benefits of Redis Enterprise over source available and open source Redis.

Redis Community Edition is the next evolution of the open source Redis project. It is completely source available and will merge features and functionality from the Redis Stack project such as JSON, query and search, time series, probabilistic functions (i.e. Bloom, Cuckoo, top-k) and vector search.

Redis is no longer considered open source. Starting with Redis 7.4, Redis is licensed under the Redis Source Available License (RSALv2) and the Server Side Public License (SSPLv1). These licenses allow permissive use of the source code but include restrictions to protect Redis’ commercial interests, particularly against cloud providers offering Redis as a managed service without a commercial agreement.

Redis Community Edition remains freely available and continues to support a wide range of use cases and integrations.

For more details, you can read the full announcement.

Open source Redis was created by Salvatore Sanfilippo in 2009 to provide a fast, in-memory data structure store for real-time applications. We took over its development and commercial aspects in 2015, allowing for more structured support and the development of Redis Stack and Redis Enterprise, enhancing Redis’s capabilities and commercial reach.

Google Cloud Memorystore is a web service offered by Google Cloud (f.k.a. GCP) to deploy a Redis alternative service in Google Cloud. It is fully managed by Google Cloud and commonly used for basic caching and session storage.

Both Redis Cloud and Google Cloud Memorystore are caching solutions designed to optimize the performance of applications. However, their features and offerings differ in several key areas. While both solutions cater to similar use cases, Redis Cloud has enhanced capabilities around developer experience, deployment, management, performance and scalability plus advanced features like built-in query and search.

Migrating your data from Redis software or Google Cloud Memorystore to Redis Cloud is easy.

For Redis software, log in to the Redis Cloud Admin interface, look for the “Replica Of” option, enter your Redis software address and credentials, and then wait for the sync icon to complete—that’s it.

Since Memorystore doesn’t support “Replica Of,” you’ll have to use RIOT—our homegrown and supported command-line utility to get data in and out of Redis.

Watch the upgrade demo

The ability to integrate and the ecosystem around it are crucial factors in how widely caching solutions are adopted and how effective they are. Both Redis and Memorystore offer a range of integration options, but they differ in their ecosystem support and partnerships. Notably, Redis offers Redis Data Integration (RDI) for near real-time syncing of data between Redis and system of record databases, a feature not provided by Memorystore.

Redis offers advanced security features such as SSL/TLS encryption, role-based access control (RBAC), and Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) peering, ensuring robust protection and flexibility. While Memorystore provides basic encryption at rest and in transit and integrates with Google Cloud Identity and Access Management (IAM) for access control, Redis Cloud stands out with its comprehensive security measures, including advanced RBAC, enhanced VPC peering options, and more flexible encryption configurations.