Redis (cluster mode enabled vs disabled) vs Memcached

Last updated on April 10, 2023

	Redis (cluster mode enabled)	Redis (cluster mode disabled)	Memcached
Data Types	string, sets, sorted sets, lists, hashes, bitmaps, hyperloglog, geospatial indexes	string, sets, sorted sets, lists, hashes, bitmaps, hyperloglog, geospatial indexes	string, objects (like databases)
Data Partitioning (distribute your data among multiple nodes)	Supported	Unsupported	Supported
Modifiable cluster	Only versions 3.2.10 and later	Yes	Yes
Online resharding	Only versions 3.2.10 and later	No	No
Encryption	3.2.6, 4.0.10 and later	3.2.6, 4.0.10 and later	Unsupported
Sub-millisecond latency	Yes	Yes	Yes
FedRAMP, PCI DSS and HIPAA compliant	3.2.6, 4.0.10 and later	3.2.6, 4.0.10 and later	No
Multi-threaded (make use of multiple processing cores)	No	No	Yes
Node type upgrading	No	Yes	No
Engine upgrading	Yes
Cluster replication (create multiple copies of a primary cluster)	Supported	Supported	Unsupported
Multi-AZ for automatic failover	Required	Optional	Unsupported
Transactions (execute a group of commands as an isolated and atomic operation)	Supported	Supported	Unsupported
Pub/Sub capability	Yes	Yes	No
Backup and restore (keep your data on disk with a point in time snapshot)	Supported	Supported	Unsupported
Lua Scripting (execute transactional Lua scripts)	Supported	Supported	Unsupported
Use case	You need to partition your data across two to 250 or 500 nodes if the Redis engine version is 5.0.6 or higher.(clustered mode only). You need geospatial indexing (clustered mode or non-clustered mode). You don’t need to support multiple databases. Plus features of non-clustered mode	You need complex data types, such as strings, hashes, lists, sets, sorted sets, and bitmaps. You need to sort or rank in-memory datasets. You need persistence of your key store. You need to replicate your data from the primary to one or more read replicas for read intensive applications. You need automatic failover if your primary node fails. You need pub/sub capabilities. You need backup and restore capabilities. You need to support multiple databases.	You need the simplest model possible. You need to run large nodes with multiple cores or threads. You need the ability to scale out and in, adding and removing nodes as demand on your system increases and decreases. You need to cache objects, such as a database. Needs Auto Discovery to simplify the way an application connects to a cluster.

Note: If you are studying for the AWS Certified Database Specialty exam, we highly recommend that you take our AWS Certified Database – Specialty Practice Exams and read our Database Specialty exam study guide.

References:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonElastiCache/latest/mem-ug/SelectEngine.html
https://aws.amazon.com/elasticache/redis-vs-memcached/
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonElastiCache/latest/red-ug/Replication.Redis-RedisCluster.html

Written by: Jon Bonso

Jon Bonso is the co-founder of Tutorials Dojo, an EdTech startup and an AWS Digital Training Partner that provides high-quality educational materials in the cloud computing space. He graduated from Mapúa Institute of Technology in 2007 with a bachelor's degree in Information Technology. Jon holds 10 AWS Certifications and is also an active AWS Community Builder since 2020.