Why Spring Boot 2.0 Switched to Lettuce: Key Features and Benefits

1. Introduction

Spring Boot 2.0 changed its Redis client driver from Jedis to Lettuce . This article explores whether the decision is based on preference or technical reasons.

Lettuce offers many excellent features, such as:

Netty‑based, supporting an event model

Supports synchronous, asynchronous, and reactive usage

Easy connection to Redis Sentinel

Full support for Redis Cluster

SSL connections

Streaming API

Integration with CDI and Spring

Compatibility with Java 8 and 9

2. Important Features

(1) Multi‑threaded Sharing

Jedis uses a direct connection mode; sharing a Jedis instance across multiple threads is unsafe, requiring a connection pool for each thread, which increases physical connection costs.

Lettuce, built on Netty, allows a single connection instance to be safely shared among multiple threads, eliminating the need for many connections.

(2) Asynchronous

Asynchronous operation better utilizes system resources by avoiding thread blocking on network or disk I/O.

Because Lettuce relies on Netty, a multithreaded event‑driven I/O framework, it can fully exploit asynchronous advantages.

Code Example

Connection

Blocking read

Set timeout for blocking read

Asynchronous usage with RedisFuture<T> triggers actions when the future completes

(3) Excellent Redis Cluster Support

Lettuce supports all cluster commands, hash‑slot based routing, high‑level abstractions, multi‑node command execution, direct node connections by slot and address, SSL and authentication, topology updates, and publish/subscribe.

(4) Streaming API

When handling massive data sets, fetching large collections can overwhelm memory; Lettuce’s streaming API allows processing data as a stream.

Example 1

Example 2

3. Conclusion

Lettuce is worth studying in depth; see the official documentation:

https://github.com/lettuce-io/lettuce-core/wiki