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Redis › Redis vs Memcached

How would you decide between Redis and Memcached for a large scale application with a purely simple, high volume string caching requirement and no need for advanced features?

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Answer

You would benchmark both under a realistic workload closely matching your actual traffic patterns, weigh Memcached's potentially higher raw throughput for simple operations against Redis's additional operational value like built-in replication and persistence which might simplify your overall infrastructure even if you do not currently need Redis's more advanced data structures, and consider your team's existing familiarity and operational experience with each option.
-- Benchmark both under realistic conditions
memtier_benchmark --protocol=memcache_text
redis-benchmark -t set,get
Real-world example A large scale application team ultimately chooses Redis over Memcached even for a fairly simple caching need, valuing the built-in replication and persistence options that simplified their overall infrastructure, despite Memcached's slightly higher raw benchmark throughput.

Common follow-ups: What operational complexity differences exist between running Redis versus Memcached in production?;How much does raw throughput actually matter for this specific application's real world traffic patterns?