From Frustration to Revolution: The Redis Story and the Open Source Battle

Redis began as a personal project by Salvatore Sanfilippo, an Italian programmer struggling with slow databases at his startup. In 2009, frustrated with performance limitations, he created a fast in-memory data store prototype called LMDB, which later evolved into Redis. Unlike traditional databases that relied on slower disk storage, Redis stored data directly in RAM, enabling lightning-fast access—around 100 nanoseconds compared to milliseconds for solid-state drives. This speed made it ideal for real-time applications like social media feeds, online gaming leaderboards, chat services, and session management. Redis quickly gained traction within the Ruby on Rails community after developer Ezra Zygmuntowicz promoted it, eventually catching the attention of major companies like Twitter, Instagram, GitHub, and more. These platforms used Redis for critical features such as instant tweet updates, photo likes, background job queues, and shopping cart persistence, transforming user experiences across digital platforms. Despite its success, Redis remained open source under a permissive BSD license for over a decade, allowing widespread adoption without legal restrictions. However, tensions arose when Redis Labs, the company behind Redis, accused cloud providers like AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure of profiting from Redis-as-a-service without adequately contributing back to the project. In response, Redis changed its licensing model in 2024, introducing the restrictive SSPL and RSAL licenses, which required companies offering Redis-based services to either open-source their entire infrastructure or face compliance issues. This move sparked outrage in the open-source community, leading to mass departures of core contributors and exclusion from Linux distributions. The controversy triggered a wave of forks, most notably Valkey, led by AWS and backed by the Linux Foundation, creating a direct competitor committed to preserving the original open-source spirit. Redis responded by reintroducing Salvatore Sanfilippo in 2024 and adopting a tri-license approach with AGPLv3 in 2025—a strategic but controversial attempt to reconcile with the community while maintaining control. Despite the drama, Redis continues to innovate, adding new features like vector sets for AI applications and enhancing developer experience. Its journey highlights the complex interplay between open-source ideals, commercial interests, and community trust. Whether through Redis or its forks, the technology remains embedded in countless everyday digital interactions—from seamless messaging and real-time analytics to secure banking alerts and ride-hailing location tracking. Redis’s story is not just about software—it’s a tale of human ingenuity, passion, conflict, and resilience in the ever-evolving tech landscape.

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