In case you’re a developer who desires probably the most feature-rich, high-performance model of Redis, your selection is obvious: Redis and never a fork. When you’ve got the time and inclination to dabble in ideological debates about open supply licensing, properly, you may make one other selection. However for those who’re simply making an attempt to get your job performed and wish a fantastic database that traditionally was primarily a cache however as we speak gives far more, you’re going to go for Redis and never its fork, Valkey.
So argues Redis CEO Rowan Trollope in an interview. “It’s unquestionable that Redis, since we launched Redis 8.0 with all of the capabilities from Redis Stack, is simply a much more succesful platform,” he says. He substantiates the declare by cataloging “an entire bunch of issues” that Valkey doesn’t supply, a minimum of not at parity: vector search, a real-time indexing and question engine, probabilistic knowledge sorts, JSON help, and many others. (Observe that some distributors, like Google Cloud, have began to fill in a few of these blanks, a minimum of in pre-GA releases, like Google’s Memorystore.)
That’s all CEO-speak, proper? What would a critical technologist say about Redis? It is perhaps troublesome to discover a extra credible Redis professional than Redis founder Salvatore Sanfilippo who not too long ago returned to the Redis neighborhood (and firm) he left in 2020. Why return? Amongst different causes, Sanfilippo desires to assist form Redis for a world awash with generative AI. In his phrases, “Not too long ago I began to assume that sorted units can encourage a brand new knowledge sort, the place the rating is definitely a vector.” Trollope says, “Redis has an actual alternative to emerge as a core a part of the genAI infrastructure stack.” Discussions about licensing, Trollope notes, is perhaps enjoyable “popcorn fodder” that fixates on the previous, however the true focus needs to be on Redis’ future as an integral a part of the AI stack.
