Everyone's Racing To Replace Redis - Who Will Win?

Theo - t3․gg

Redis License Change Background

Redis Inc changed from open source BSD license to non-free source available license March 21st
Goal: prevent companies like Amazon from reselling Redis without paying back
Impact went far beyond intended scope - affected Linux distributions and broader ecosystem
Code still available but not open source compatible with other licenses

Linux Foundation announced Valkey - open source alternative to Redis
Forked from Redis 7.2.4 (last version with old BSD license)
Named as pun on "key-val"
Linux cannot support non-permissive dependencies due to license compatibility
Historical precedent: Linux Foundation forks often kill original projects (example: Git vs Mercurial/SVN)
Supports Linux, macOS, OpenBSD, NetBSD, FreeBSD (notably missing Windows)

Corporate backers: AWS, Google Cloud, Oracle, Ericsson, Snap Inc
Key personnel: Madelyn Olson (former Redis maintainer, AWS principal engineer) co-created Valkey
Ping Xie (former Redis contributor, Google software engineer) supporting
Multiple former Redis core team members now working on Valkey
Open governance model, community-driven development
Technical leadership committee assembled from former Redis contributors

2020: Redis Inc promised to never change license, committed to BSD licensing
Established governance model with community core team for major decisions
Governance page now hidden from website (available on Internet Archive)
Original creator Salvatore Sanfilippo (antirez) left company in 2020 after making license promise
Company dropped "Labs" from name in 2021, became just "Redis Inc"

KeyDB: Multi-threaded fork by Snapchat (2019), fully open source since Snap acquisition (2022)
- Missing Redis 7 features, limited maintenance resources
- John Sully discussing adding maintainers to catch up
Redict: Drew DeVault's fork using LGPL v3 license
- Hosted on Codeberg (not SourceHut)
- Deliberate copyleft choice for easier compliance
Microsoft Garnet: .NET-based Redis alternative (MIT license)
- In development since 2021 by Microsoft Research
- Redis protocol compatible, some commands missing (e.g., FLUSHALL)

Fedora: Initially considered KeyDB, now moving to Valkey
- Jonathan Wright packaging Valkey once tagged release available
OpenSUSE: Similar trajectory - KeyDB consideration, likely Valkey adoption
Debian: Leaning toward KeyDB packaging with potential transition to Valkey
All distributions must remove Redis due to license incompatibility
OpenSUSE project services (including Pagure code host) need Redis replacements

MongoDB changed to similar restricted license, now generates $1.68 billion revenue
48,000 paying customers (excludes free tier)
~2,000 customers (5%) paying over $100K annually
Spending $782 million annually on sales/marketing (nearly $1.5B total on sales/marketing/admin)
Stock price: $33 to $350+ per share
Business model: charge existing customers more vs acquiring new customers
Redis Inc lacks resources for similar marketing spend approach

Redis ranked 6th most used database in 2023 Stack Overflow survey
Major contributors to Redis: Tencent (largest), Redis Inc (second), plus many cloud providers
Claim that cloud providers don't contribute is false - significant code contributions documented
Redis Inc took $350+ million in VC funding since 2011
Decision likely calculated based on MongoDB's apparent success

Historical context: Technical decisions made by non-technical management/sales
Modern trend: Developers increasingly control technical selection
Open source accessibility provides "enormous market advantage" even over technically superior proprietary alternatives
"Book a call" sales gates major barrier for developer adoption
Developers prefer instant download/trial over sales conversations

Redis Inc likely to lose significant market share
Valky backed by much larger companies with better funding
Redis Inc lost ability to acquire new customers through open source adoption
Can only grow revenue from existing customer base
Author predicts Redis Inc may not survive 2-3 years
Decision represents "actual death of Redis" - loaded gun handed to competitors who pulled trigger

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