What is Valkey used for?

Valkey is a high-performance, open-source key-value data store forked from Redis before its license change, built for caching and realtime workloads with a module system. It is a good fit for caching in front of databases, replacing Redis under an open license, and session and queue storage.

Is Valkey open source?

Yes. Valkey is open source under the BSD-3-Clause licence. Its source code is on GitHub at valkey-io/valkey and is written mainly in C.

Yes. Valkey is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

Can I self-host Valkey?

Yes. Valkey can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.

What is Valkey an alternative to?

Valkey is an open-source alternative to Upstash, Aiven, Amazon ElastiCache and Amazon MemoryDB. Other open-source alternatives to Upstash include Redis, Dragonfly and DiceDB.

Is Valkey actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to Valkey was on 2 October 2026, and the latest release is 9.1.2, published on 1 September 2026. The project has 27k stars on GitHub.

Valkey: open-source alternative to Upstash, Aiven

About Valkey

Valkey is a distributed key-value database optimized for caching and other realtime workloads. It was forked from the open-source Redis project just before Redis moved to source-available licenses, and it continues as a community-driven alternative under the permissive BSD-3-Clause license.

It acts as a data structure server that mainly handles key-value workloads, supporting many native data structures along with an extensible module system for adding new structures and access patterns. The code is written in C and can be compiled with a simple make command on Linux, macOS, OpenBSD, NetBSD and FreeBSD, on both big and little endian and 32 and 64-bit systems. Support for Solaris-derived systems is limited and not guaranteed. TLS needs OpenSSL development libraries and can be built in or as a module.

The README is a quick-start only, with fuller documentation on valkey.io. Valkey is self-run software and is compatible with the Redis ecosystem of clients, so teams use it as a replacement for Redis in caching, session storage and queues when they prefer a fully open-source license.

Key features

Distributed key-value data store
Native data structures
Extensible module system
Builds on Linux, macOS and BSD systems
TLS support built in or as a module
Permissive BSD-3-Clause open-source license

Good fit for

→Caching in front of databases
→Replacing Redis under an open license
→Session and queue storage

Built with: C; Redis
Tags: key-value; cache; redis-alternative; database; nosql; in-memory; c-language; valkey; self-hosted

Valkey: questions and answers

What is Valkey used for?: Valkey is a high-performance, open-source key-value data store forked from Redis before its license change, built for caching and realtime workloads with a module system. It is a good fit for caching in front of databases, replacing Redis under an open license, and session and queue storage.
Is Valkey open source?: Yes. Valkey is open source under the BSD-3-Clause licence. Its source code is on GitHub at valkey-io/valkey and is written mainly in C.
Is Valkey free?: Yes. Valkey is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
Can I self-host Valkey?: Yes. Valkey can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
What is Valkey an alternative to?: Valkey is an open-source alternative to Upstash, Aiven, Amazon ElastiCache and Amazon MemoryDB. Other open-source alternatives to Upstash include Redis, Dragonfly and DiceDB.
Is Valkey actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to Valkey was on 2 October 2026, and the latest release is 9.1.2, published on 1 September 2026. The project has 27k stars on GitHub.