Valkeyvs
Redis
Redis: The original project Valkey forked from, now under a different licence
Valkey
Open-source in-memory data store forked from Redis
As of 29 August 2026, Valkey is free to use. The Linux Foundation fork of Redis, created after Redis left its open-source licence. Softwr lists it under Databases. Valkey is made by Linux Foundation, available on Linux, macOS, Self-hosted.
Overview
What Valkey does
Valkey is an open-source in-memory data store, forked from Redis in 2024 after Redis Ltd changed the project’s licence away from the BSD terms the community had relied on. It is stewarded by the Linux Foundation with backing from AWS, Google Cloud, Oracle and others. Technically it is Redis: the same data structures, the same protocol, and drop-in compatibility with existing clients at the fork point. The reason to care is licensing and governance rather than features — Valkey remains BSD-licensed under a neutral foundation, which is what most cloud providers standardised on after the change.
What people use it for
- Continuing on a permissively licensed in-memory store after the Redis licence change
- Caching and session storage where a foundation-governed project is a procurement requirement
- Migrating from Redis without rewriting application code
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 Valkey.
- Younger project, so its track record is short even though the codebase is not
- Divergence from Redis grows over time, so compatibility is strongest near the fork point and weakens as both evolve
- Ecosystem tooling and documentation still frequently assume Redis, leaving translation work
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of Valkey
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 Valkey costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
Valkey
Free
- Full functionality
- Self-hosted
- No usage limits
Capabilities
Features
Redis-compatible
Same protocol and data structures, so existing clients work unchanged
BSD licensed
Permissive licence under Linux Foundation governance
Rich data structures
Strings, hashes, lists, sets, sorted sets and streams
Replication and persistence
Primary-replica replication with snapshot and append-only persistence
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 Valkey free?
Yes, BSD-licensed open source under the Linux Foundation.
Why does Valkey exist?
Redis changed its licence away from BSD in 2024. Valkey is the community fork continuing under permissive terms, backed by AWS, Google Cloud and Oracle among others.
Can I switch from Redis to Valkey?
At the fork point it is drop-in compatible with existing clients and data. The further both projects move from that point, the more you should verify the specific features you use.
Keep looking
Where to go from Valkey
- Valkey alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- Valkey pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- Valkey 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 Valkey with
- Dragonfly
- Memcached
- MariaDB
- Aiven
- Redpanda
- Timeplus
- PostgreSQL
- Apache Kafka
- RabbitMQ
- Meilisearch
- NATS
- DataGrip
- Estuary
- Apache Airflow
- Apache Pinot
- Apache Pulsar
- Cassandra
- CouchDB
Other Databases software
High-performance Redis-compatible in-memory datastore with 25x better throughput
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Free, then $8.25/mo12 researched notesReal-time data integration combining streaming, CDC, and batch
Free, then $0.5/GB10 researched notesProgrammatically author, schedule and monitor data workflows in Python
Open source11 researched notesCloud-native messaging and streaming with separated storage
Open source10 researched notes
Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Valkey, 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 Valkey
Valkey alternatives
What people switch to, and what they give up
Valkey pricing
Every tier, and where the cost actually lands
Compare Valkey
Put it head to head with anything we hold
Valkey badge
Its rating, and an embed for your own site
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