ElastiCache Redis vs Memcached
When to use Redis versus Memcached for distributed caching on AWS.
Overview
What is being compared
Redis and Memcached are both in-memory data stores offered as managed services through ElastiCache. Redis has become the default for most use cases because it adds capabilities at comparable performance.
- Data model — Rich data structures — Simple key-value
- Persistence — Yes — No
- Replication — Yes — No
- Pub/sub — Yes — No
- Threading — Single-threaded command execution — Multi-threaded
- Scaling strength — Features at comparable performance — Pure horizontal scaling
- Fits — Sessions, leaderboards, rate limiting, pub/sub, geospatial queries, a cache that survives restarts — Stateless caching with very simple key-value access across many nodes
What happens when a node goes down
The real difference shows when a node restarts or fails. A Redis node comes back with its data, from persistence or from a replica that takes over; a Memcached node comes back empty and stays cold until the application refills it from the origin.
> [!TIP] Both cluster shapes, a leaderboard update on each engine, and the choice between them play step by step in Visual Explanation below.
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