MMemcachedvs
Redis
Redis: The richer alternative with persistence, replication and data structures, and the usual default today
M
Memcached
Distributed memory object caching system
As of 1 September 2026, Memcached is free to use. The original distributed memory cache. Softwr lists it under Databases. Memcached is available on Linux, macOS, Windows, Self-hosted.
Overview
What Memcached does
Memcached is a distributed memory object caching system, built to reduce database load by holding results of expensive queries and API calls in RAM. It was created for LiveJournal in 2003 and remains in production at very large scale. It is defined by what it refuses to do. There is no persistence, no replication, no data structures beyond simple key-value, and no clustering logic on the server — clients decide which node holds which key. That refusal is why it is fast, predictable and almost maintenance-free, and why Redis displaced it wherever more than caching was needed.
What people use it for
- Caching expensive database query results to cut load
- Session storage where losing sessions on restart is acceptable
- Fronting an API whose responses are costly and change slowly
Related searches
The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about Memcached.
- No persistence at all: restart a node and its cache is gone, which every design must assume
- No replication or failover, so losing a node loses that share of the cache
- Only simple key-value, with none of the lists, sorted sets or streams Redis offers
- Values are capped at 1MB by default, which surprises teams caching large documents
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of Memcached
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
Pricing
What Memcached costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
Memcached
Free
- Full functionality
- Self-hosted
- No usage limits
Capabilities
Features
In-memory key-value cache
Simple get and set against RAM, with LRU eviction
Multithreaded
Uses multiple cores on a single node, unlike some single-threaded alternatives
Client-side sharding
Servers stay independent; clients distribute keys across the pool
Predictable memory use
Slab allocation with a fixed memory ceiling per node
Answered, with sources
Questions people ask
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
Is Memcached free?
Yes, open source with no licence fee.
Memcached or Redis?
Memcached is a pure cache: simpler, multithreaded and very predictable. Redis adds persistence, replication and rich data structures, which is why it is the default choice unless you specifically want a cache and nothing more.
Does Memcached persist data?
No. Everything is in memory and lost on restart, by design.
Keep looking
Where to go from Memcached
- Memcached alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- Memcached pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- Memcached badgesWhich rules it meets, and the figure behind each
- All Databases softwareThe full category
- Best Databases softwareThe shortlist, and how it was cut
Best Databases software for
Compare Memcached with
- Dragonfly
- Valkey
- Readyset
- PostgreSQL
- DuckDB
- DynamoDB
- NATS
- Apache Pulsar
- Presto
- Timeplus
- RabbitMQ
- EMQX
- FaunaDB
- Firebase Realtime Database
- MotherDuck
- Neo4j
- Apache Kafka
- Firestore
Other Databases software
High-performance Redis-compatible in-memory datastore with 25x better throughput
Free plan10 researched notesDatabase caching and optimization that reduces infrastructure costs 30-70%
Free plan10 researched notesMIT-licensed analytical SQL database that runs inside your process, with no server, no dependencies and one writer at a time.
Free plan14 researched notesAWS-only managed key-value and document database with fixed per-partition throughput limits and no ad hoc queries.
Free, then $0.625/million writes14 researched notesCloud-native messaging and streaming with separated storage
Open source10 researched notesThe Meta-lineage distributed SQL query engine, distinct from the Trino fork
Open source12 researched notesStreaming SQL engine built on ClickHouse internals, shipping as one small binary
Free, then $199/mo12 researched notesErlang MQTT broker for large IoT fleets, relicensed to BSL with production free use limited to one node
Free, then $234/mo12 researched notesDocument-relational database whose hosted service closed in 2025 and whose core is now unmaintained Apache 2.0 code.
Free plan14 researched notesStore and sync data in real-time across all clients
Free plan12 researched notes
Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Memcached, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
More on Memcached
Memcached alternatives
What people switch to, and what they give up
Memcached pricing
Every tier, and where the cost actually lands
Compare Memcached
Put it head to head with anything we hold
Memcached badge
Its rating, and an embed for your own site
Best Databases software alternatives
Industrial process historian with published per-tag pricing and no client licence fees
Per tag band per year
NetApp-owned managed service for Cassandra, Kafka, OpenSearch, PostgreSQL and Cadence with a bring-your-own-cloud model
quoteErlang MQTT broker for large IoT fleets, relicensed to BSL with production free use limited to one node
Per month by connection and session volume
Attribute-based access control and masking applied inside Snowflake, Databricks and BigQuery
quote
MPP analytical database with a MySQL wire protocol and sub-second aggregation on wide tables
Open source, no licence fee
Streaming database that maintains incremental materialised views in SQL instead of Flink jobs
Per RisingWave Unit hour
Centralised data access governance from the creators of Apache Ranger, now rebranding as Trust3 AI
quoteThe Meta-lineage distributed SQL query engine, distinct from the Trino fork
Open source, no licence fee