Valkey vs KeyDB vs Redis: Threading, Maintenance Status, Licensing and Which to Run in 2026

The short answer

For new deployments, choose Valkey over KeyDB. KeyDB's design is interesting, with multithreaded command execution, active replication and flash storage, but its last release, 6.3.4, shipped on 30 October 2023 and its main branch has had no commit since April 2024. Valkey is maintained by a Linux Foundation community, keeps the BSD licence, ships regular releases on several lines, and since Valkey 8 uses I/O threads to spread network work across cores. If you already run KeyDB, plan a move while it still works. Redis itself is the other option, under RSALv2, SSPLv1 or AGPLv3 from version 8.

Valkey vs KeyDB vs Redis at a glance

KeyDB: a strong design that has stopped moving

KeyDB describes itself as a high-performance fork of Redis focused on multithreading, memory efficiency and high throughput. Where Redis executes commands on one main thread, KeyDB runs several server threads that serve requests, and its MVCC design lets commands such as KEYS and SCAN run without blocking the database. It added active replication, where replicas accept writes and replicate to each other, multi-master setups, FLASH storage and subkey expires, which let parts of a collection expire on their own.

Snap Inc. took over KeyDB in May 2022, and version 6.3.0 folded the former KeyDB Enterprise features into the open source project under BSD-3. KeyDB's README says Snap uses it in its caching infrastructure and that there is no separate commercial product and no paid support. Since then the project has gone quiet. Release 6.3.4 shipped on 30 October 2023, and the main branch's last commit was on 4 April 2024. Any fix made upstream in Redis or Valkey since then has not shipped in a KeyDB release.

Valkey: the maintained fork

Valkey was launched as a Linux Foundation project eight days after Redis changed its licence in March 2024, by contributors from Alibaba, Amazon, Ericsson, Google, Huawei and Tencent. Its first release was 7.2.5, and it keeps the BSD licence. Valkey 8 introduced I/O threads that read and parse commands, write responses and handle other I/O work, while command execution stays on the main thread, keeping the single-threaded execution model that Redis users rely on for atomicity.

Valkey 9.0, released on 21 October 2025, added atomic slot migration, which moves whole cluster slots at once, expiration for individual hash fields, and numbered databases in cluster mode. Releases are frequent: 9.1.2, 9.0.6, 8.1.10 and 8.0.11 all shipped at the start of September 2026, and 9.2 is in release candidate. Our Valkey vs Redis comparison covers how Valkey and Redis have diverged since the fork.

Valkey vs KeyDB performance

KeyDB publishes its own benchmarks, and Valkey publishes its own, each on hardware and tests of the author's choosing; neither transfers to your workload. The architectures differ in a way you can reason about. KeyDB executes commands on several threads, which can use more cores in one process. Valkey keeps execution on one thread and offloads I/O, which keeps command behaviour identical to Redis while still using several cores for network work. Both scale further with cluster mode. If you are choosing between them today, maintenance status matters more than throughput: a faster server that no longer gets fixes is a risk on every network your cache is reachable from.

Moving from KeyDB to Valkey

KeyDB speaks the Redis protocol, and so does Valkey, so clients and most commands carry over unchanged. The work is in the features only KeyDB has. Active replication and multi-master setups need redesigning as primary and replica pairs or a Valkey cluster. FLASH storage has no direct equivalent, so size memory for the data set. KeyDB's subkey expires map partly onto Valkey 9's hash field expiration, which covers fields of a hash only. Test with a copy of production data and your real client libraries before switching. Our Redis to Valkey migration guide covers the general steps.

How to choose

• Choose Valkey for new deployments and for moving off KeyDB: BSD licence, active maintenance, several supported lines and I/O threading.
• Choose Redis if you want Redis Ltd.'s data types, modules or commercial products and the RSALv2, SSPLv1 or AGPLv3 terms suit you. Our Redis Enterprise alternatives guide covers the commercial options.
• Stay on KeyDB only as a stopgap while you plan the move, and keep it off untrusted networks in the meantime.

Where OSSeva fits

OSSeva supports Valkey and Redis. It does not support KeyDB. OSSeva for Redis ships CVE-patched Redis 6.2 and 7.0 builds under the original BSD licence and supports Valkey 7.2 and 8.x, with OSSeva Assure adding security hardening and compliance documentation and OSSeva Operate adding 24/7 monitoring and named engineers. For KeyDB estates, OSSeva supports the Valkey 7.2 or 8.x deployment you move to from the first day after cutover. Redis and Valkey are priced per instance cluster, not per GB of memory or per operation, under one contract with the rest of your stack. See Redis extended support and Redis and Valkey support providers, or book a discovery call for a quote.

Frequently asked questions

Valkey vs KeyDB vs Redis: which should I use?

Valkey for a BSD-licensed, actively maintained Redis-compatible server. Redis if you want Redis Ltd.'s modules and commercial products under its current licences. KeyDB only if you already run it and are planning a move, since it has had no release since October 2023.

Valkey vs KeyDB performance: which is faster?

KeyDB runs commands on several threads; Valkey keeps commands on one thread and moves network I/O to other threads. Each project's benchmarks favour its own design, so test with your workload. For most teams the deciding factor is that Valkey is maintained and KeyDB is not.

Is KeyDB still maintained?

Not actively. Its last release, 6.3.4, shipped on 30 October 2023, and the main branch's last commit was on 4 April 2024. Snap owns the project, which it uses internally, and offers no paid support.

KeyDB vs Redis: what is the difference?

KeyDB is a BSD-licensed fork of Redis that added multithreaded command execution, active replication, FLASH storage and subkey expiry. Redis keeps single-threaded execution with optional I/O threads and moved to RSALv2, SSPLv1 and AGPLv3 licensing from 7.4 onwards.

Can I replace KeyDB with Valkey?

Usually yes. Both speak the Redis protocol, so clients connect unchanged. Deployments that rely on KeyDB's active replication, multi-master, FLASH storage or subkey expires need those parts redesigned before the switch.

Is Valkey a drop-in replacement for Redis?

For Redis 7.2 and earlier, largely yes: Valkey forked from Redis 7.2 and keeps its protocol and commands. Features Redis Ltd. added after the fork, and its modules, may not be present or may differ, so check the commands you use.