Choosing a Redis Option: Memcached, Valkey, Hyperscalers or VSHN

Redis has more genuine decision surface than most of the services in this portfolio. The choice is not only who runs it: it is whether you need Redis at all, which license you end up under, and whether a hyperscaler's managed version or a Swiss-operated one fits your jurisdiction requirements. This page compares five paths: Memcached, Valkey, the hyperscaler managed options, Exoscale DBaaS, and VSHN Managed Redis.

Quick comparison

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If all you want is a cache, look at Memcached

Memcached describes itself as a distributed memory object caching system: an in-memory key-value store for small chunks of arbitrary data, intended for speeding up dynamic web applications by taking load off the database. Its own pitch is that the simple design is the feature.

Memcached does one thing. Redis does that plus the data structures, persistence options, streams and replication. If the answer is genuinely "we want to cache database results and nothing else," Memcached is less to learn and less to run. If sorted sets, rate limiting, session semantics or a queue are anywhere on your roadmap, adopting Redis now avoids running two things later.

Valkey: a governance choice, not a performance one

Valkey is a BSD-licensed, open source key-value datastore forked from Redis after Redis Ltd.'s 2024 license change. The project is backed by the Linux Foundation, which is what keeps it open source. It implements the same data structures and protocol as Redis.

The choice between Redis and Valkey is not about speed or features: it is about who controls the license going forward. Exoscale already offers Valkey as part of its DBaaS. VSHN does not sell it yet; Servala lists it as "Coming Soon."

If you already run Redis as a dependency, staying on Redis is the lower-risk path: you do not need to investigate Valkey's compatibility or take on a migration, and you can keep the project moving on the original rather than a fork. If a vendor-controlled license is the deciding factor for your organization, Valkey's foundation backing is the reason it exists.

The Redis license question

This is the part most comparisons skip. Redis Open Source, starting with Redis 8, is offered under a choice of three licenses: the Redis Source Available License v2 (RSALv2), the Server Side Public License v1 (SSPLv1), or the GNU Affero General Public License v3 (AGPLv3). Redis's own licensing page states plainly that RSALv2 is not an open source license; SSPLv1 is not either; AGPLv3 is OSI-approved and is.

What this means in practice:

• If you are choosing today, you pick one of the three at deployment time. AGPLv3 is the one that is both free and OSI-approved.
• If you already run an older Redis version, Redis 7.2 and earlier stayed BSD-3-Clause, and nothing about the 2024 change affects it.
• If your compliance function reviews licenses, this is a conversation worth having before deployment rather than after. It is also the reason Valkey exists as an alternative above.

Hyperscaler managed options: ElastiCache, Azure Cache, Memorystore

Amazon ElastiCache, Azure Cache for Redis and Google Cloud Memorystore are the three hyperscalers' own managed Redis-compatible caching services. Like their managed database equivalents elsewhere in this portfolio (Amazon RDS, Google Cloud SQL, Azure Database), each runs only on that provider's own infrastructure, and each hyperscaler is a US company subject to the CLOUD Act: US authorities can compel data access regardless of which region the service runs in.

Fits when your team is already committed to that hyperscaler's ecosystem and US jurisdiction exposure is an accepted trade-off.

Exoscale DBaaS

Exoscale offers Valkey as part of its DBaaS, included in Exoscale IaaS+ with no additional vendor needed and billed per second. Exoscale is a VSHN infrastructure partner, not a competitor VSHN operates on your behalf: Exoscale DBaaS is self-service infrastructure, so your own team still handles monitoring, incident response, backup verification and version upgrades.

Fits when your team can operate its own cache and wants Swiss-zone infrastructure without a separate operations contract.

VSHN Managed Redis

VSHN operates Redis on your choice of Swiss cloud infrastructure, via AppCat or self-service through Servala.

Strengths:

• Swiss company, Swiss jurisdiction. No CLOUD Act exposure through the operations layer.
• 24/7 incident response optional on top of business-hours support.
• Fixed, published pricing: CHF 60/month (single instance), CHF 180/month (replicated), CHF 540/month (99.99% SLA, replicated). Cloud provider compute is billed separately.
• You choose the Redis license (RSALv2, SSPLv1 or AGPLv3) at deployment; Valkey is not yet an orderable VSHN service.

Fits when: Swiss jurisdiction is required, you want predictable CHF pricing, or your team cannot sustain 24/7 cache operations.

Which option fits?

Choose Memcached if caching is genuinely all you need and you want the smallest thing to run.

Choose Valkey (via Exoscale DBaaS today; not yet a VSHN service) if a vendor-controlled license is your main concern and you can take on self-service operations or wait for it to become orderable.

Choose a hyperscaler managed option if you are already committed to that ecosystem and US jurisdiction is an accepted trade-off.

Choose Exoscale DBaaS if you want self-service Swiss-zone infrastructure and can operate the cache yourself.

Choose VSHN Managed Redis if your data must stay under Swiss jurisdiction, you need predictable CHF pricing, or you want to stop running Redis operations yourself.

Next steps

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