redis

i don't think i need to use redis on my personal projects. but i'm happy to learn.

what redis is

in-memory key-value store. super fast because everything lives in ram. often used for caching, sessions, queues.

why people love it

• crazy fast reads/writes
• simple data structures (strings, lists, sets, hashes)
• atomic operations prevent race conditions
• pub/sub messaging built-in
• persistence options available

common use cases

• cache database queries to speed up web apps
• store user sessions for web servers
• rate limiting api requests
• real-time features like chat or notifications
• job queues for background processing

when i might actually use it

maybe for a web app that gets popular and needs caching. or if i build something with real-time features.

for cloudflare workers, i'd probably use kv storage instead. for small projects, sqlite is usually enough.

redis commands i should know

• SET/GET for basic key-value
• INCR/DECR for counters
• LPUSH/RPOP for queues
• SADD/SMEMBERS for sets
• EXPIRE for ttl

architectural patterns

• cache-aside: app manages cache manually
• write-through: writes go to cache and database
• write-behind: cache writes to database later

redis vs alternatives

• memcached: simpler, just caching
• sqlite: persistent, good for small apps
• postgresql: full database features
• cloudflare kv: managed, edge distributed

redis fills the gap between simple caching and full databases. powerful tool when you need it, probably overkill for most personal projects.