What's the Difference Between Amazon ElastiCache and Amazon MemoryDB for Valkey?
Compare Amazon ElastiCache and Amazon MemoryDB for Valkey side by side — features, pricing, and ideal use cases to help you choose the right product.
Compare side-by-side
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Comparisons
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Amazon ElastiCache
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Amazon MemoryDB for Valkey
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Category
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Database, In-Memory |
Database, In-Memory |
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Description
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Serverless cache with Valkey-, Memcached-, and Redis OSS-compatibility |
Durable, Valkey and Redis OSS-compatible in-memory database for ultra-fast performance. |
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Best for
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Key features
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Pricing model
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On-Demand or Reserved nodes |
Pay per node hour + data stored |
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Free tier
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Yes |
No |
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Expert take
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“Use Redis when you need data structures (sorted sets for leaderboards, pub/sub for messaging, streams for event logs). Use Memcached when you need simple key-value caching with multi-threaded performance. Both deliver sub-millisecond reads.” |
“Amazon MemoryDB for Valkey provides a Valkey-compatible in-memory database with durability. It is an open-source alternative to Redis with the same API compatibility.” |
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Product page
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When to use Amazon ElastiCache or Amazon MemoryDB for Valkey
Use Amazon ElastiCache when:
- Session caching
- Real-time analytics
- Leaderboards
- Pub/sub messaging
- Queuing
Learn more about Amazon ElastiCache »
Use Amazon MemoryDB for Valkey when:
- Session stores
- Caching with durability
- Real-time applications
- Leaderboards
Next steps with AWS for Database
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