Valkey vs Garnet
Both are alternatives to Redis. Here's how they stack up — verified facts, no spin.
Also searched as Garnet vs Valkey — same comparison, one verdict.
Valkey
TOP PICKThe Linux Foundation fork — same Redis, governance that cannot be revoked.
Valkey is the community fork of Redis taken from the last BSD-licensed release, now under Linux Foundation stewardship with AWS, Google and Oracle contributing. It is the same codebase, so the protocol, commands and clients are identical and migration is a hostname change. BSD-3-Clause, around 27k stars. The argument for it is not technical — it is that no single company can relicense it, which is precisely the event that created it. Performance has since moved ahead of Redis in several published benchmarks through multi-threaded I/O work the fork prioritised.
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.
Side by side
| Valkey | Garnet | |
|---|---|---|
| Sovereignty Score | 96 | 92 |
| Open source | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hostable | Yes | Yes |
| Local-first | Yes | Yes |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | MIT |
| Pricing | Free and open source. Managed offerings from AWS, Google and others. | Free and open source. |
Valkey is Macrostack's recommended Redis alternative, so it's our pick here.
Valkey
Strengths
- +Drop-in for Redis — same protocol, same clients, hostname change
- +BSD-3-Clause under Linux Foundation governance; no vendor can relicense it
- +Backed by AWS, Google and Oracle with real engineering behind it
- +Faster than Redis on several published benchmarks after multi-threading work
Trade-offs
- −Does not include Redis Ltd's proprietary modules — no RedisJSON or RediSearch
- −Younger brand, so some managed providers still list only Redis
- −Documentation still catching up with Redis's two decades
- −Divergence from upstream Redis will grow over time
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
Related alternative guides
Facts verified 2026-08-05. Licenses and pricing change — spotted something out of date? That's a correction we want.