Why Redis Is Returning to Open Source: License Shifts, Community Fallout, and Future Roadmap

Redis 8 Re‑opens Source under AGPLv3

Redis 8 is released under the OSI‑approved GNU Affero General Public License (AGPLv3). This follows a year of dual‑license distribution (RSALv2 / SSPL) for Redis 7.4‑7.9, which were not recognized as open source by the Open Source Initiative.

Available Licenses for Redis 8

RSALv2 – a source‑available license created by Redis Ltd.; the code can be viewed and used but commercial exploitation, redistribution, or removal of copyright notices is prohibited.

SSPLv1 – derived from GPLv3 by MongoDB; any service that offers Redis as a hosted product must release the entire service stack under SSPL.

AGPLv3 – the standard Affero GPL; modifications that are made available over a network must be published under the same license.

Key Technical Additions in Redis 8

Vector Sets – a new data type designed by Salvatore “antirez” Sanfilippo for efficient similarity search. It stores high‑dimensional vectors and provides commands such as VSADD, VSRANGE, and VSSCORE. Example usage: VSADD myvec 0.1 0.2 0.3 Redis Stack integration – modules for JSON, time‑series, probabilistic data structures (Bloom filter, Count‑Min Sketch, Top‑K) and the Redis Query Engine are now part of the core source tree and covered by AGPLv3.

Performance optimizations – more than 30 internal improvements, including faster I/O handling, reduced lock contention, and optimized command pipelines. Benchmarks report up to 87 % speed increase for individual commands (e.g., GET, SET) and roughly a 2× increase in overall throughput under typical workloads.

Enhanced client ecosystem – official client libraries for Go, Rust, Python, Node.js and Java have been updated to support the new data types and integrated Stack modules.

Background and Rationale

In March 2023 Redis Ltd. announced a dual‑license model (RSALv2 + SSPL) for Redis 7.4, aiming to prevent cloud providers from offering Redis as a managed service without contributing back. Maintaining two product lines (Redis Community and Redis Stack) increased development overhead and fragmented the user experience. After a year of community backlash, the company decided to revert to a single, OSI‑approved license.

Community Forks

Several forks were created in response to the SSPL licensing:

Valkey – a drop‑in replacement for Redis 7.2.4, sponsored by the Linux Foundation and major cloud vendors (AWS, Google Cloud, Oracle). The codebase is virtually identical to Redis 7.2.4.

KeyDB and Garnet – alternative implementations that add multi‑threaded execution or additional data structures.

References

https://antirez.com/news/151

https://redis.io/blog/agplv3/

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43859446