Garnet vs DragonflyDB
Both are alternatives to Redis. Here's how they stack up — verified facts, no spin.
Also searched as DragonflyDB vs Garnet — same comparison, one verdict.
Garnet
Microsoft Research's cache — MIT, and unusually fast under contention.
Garnet is a Redis-protocol cache store out of Microsoft Research, written in C#, and its published throughput under high client concurrency is striking — the workload where Redis's single-threaded design shows most. MIT licensed, around 12k stars, used inside Microsoft before release. It is the most permissively licensed serious option here. The caution is ecosystem: a .NET server is an unusual dependency for teams that are not already there, and it is the newest of these by some distance.
DragonflyDB
Redis-compatible, built for modern multi-core machines.
DragonflyDB is a ground-up reimplementation of the Redis and Memcached protocols designed for the hardware people actually run now: it scales across all cores rather than being effectively single-threaded, and reports substantially higher throughput per machine with lower memory use. Around 31k stars. That means fewer, smaller instances for the same load, which is a real cost line rather than a benchmark. The licence is Business Source License 1.1 — source-available, converting to Apache-2.0 after a delay — so it is not open source today and should not be described as such.
Side by side
| Garnet | DragonflyDB | |
|---|---|---|
| Sovereignty Score | 92 | 70 |
| Open source | Yes | No |
| Self-hostable | Yes | Yes |
| Local-first | Yes | Yes |
| License | MIT | Business Source License 1.1 (source-available, converts to Apache-2.0 in time) |
| Pricing | Free and open source. | Free to self-host within BSL terms. Dragonfly Cloud is paid. |
Garnet edges it on the Sovereignty Score, but the right pick depends on the trade-offs below.
Garnet
Strengths
- +MIT — the most permissive licence in this comparison
- +Exceptional throughput under high concurrency
- +Microsoft Research behind it, with real production use
- +Redis protocol compatible, so clients work unchanged
Trade-offs
- −Newest option here with the shortest track record
- −A .NET runtime dependency many teams will not want
- −Smaller community than Valkey or DragonflyDB
- −Not all Redis commands and data types are implemented
DragonflyDB
Strengths
- +Uses every core — far higher throughput per machine than Redis
- +Lower memory footprint for the same dataset
- +Speaks both Redis and Memcached protocols
- +Fewer, smaller instances for the same workload
Trade-offs
- −Business Source License — not open source today, whatever lists say
- −Cannot be offered as a competing managed service
- −Younger codebase with a shorter production record
- −Some rarely used Redis commands are unimplemented
Related alternative guides
Facts verified 2026-08-05. Licenses and pricing change — spotted something out of date? That's a correction we want.