Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Redis ™ VS Ably

Compare Redis VS Ably and see what are their differences

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Redis logo Redis

Redis is an open source in-memory data structure project implementing a distributed, in-memory key-value database with optional durability.

Ably logo Ably

The definitive realtime experience platform. Built for scale.
  • Redis Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-10-19

Redis is an open source (BSD licensed), in-memory data structure store, used as a database, cache and message broker. It supports data structures such as strings, hashes, lists, sets, sorted sets with range queries, bitmaps, hyperloglogs, geospatial indexes with radius queries and streams. Redis has built-in replication, Lua scripting, LRU eviction, transactions and different levels of on-disk persistence, and provides high availability via Redis Sentinel and automatic partitioning with Redis Cluster.

  • Ably Ably homepage
    Ably homepage //
    2024-08-05

Ably is the definitive realtime experience infrastructure of the internet; serving more WebSocket connections than any other pub/sub platform on earth. Businesses like HubSpot, NASCAR and Split trust us to power their critical applications - reliably, securely and at a serious scale.

Our range of application building blocks and integrations enable developers to create the realtime experiences that users and businesses demand. From live chat to data broadcast, collaborative UXs and notifications our SDKs unlock innovation - with no infrastructure to build.

Redis features and specs

  • Performance
    Redis is an in-memory data store, which allows it to provide extremely fast read and write operations. This makes it ideal for applications requiring real-time interactions.
  • Data Structures
    Redis offers a variety of data structures, such as strings, hashes, lists, sets, and sorted sets. This flexibility helps developers manage data more efficiently in different scenarios.
  • Scalability
    Redis supports horizontal scalability with features like clustering and partitioning, allowing for easy scaling as your application grows.
  • Persistence
    Though primarily an in-memory store, Redis provides options for data persistence, such as RDB snapshots and AOF logs, enabling data durability across reboots.
  • Pub/Sub Messaging
    Redis includes a built-in publish/subscribe messaging system, which can be used to implement real-time messaging and notifications.
  • Simple API
    Redis has a simple and intuitive API, which can speed up development time and make it easier to integrate Redis into various application stacks.
  • Atomic Operations
    Redis supports atomic operations on data structures, reducing the complexity of concurrent programming and making it easier to maintain data consistency.

Possible disadvantages of Redis

  • Memory Usage
    Being an in-memory data store, Redis can become expensive in terms of memory usage, especially when working with large datasets.
  • Data Persistence Limitations
    While Redis offers data persistence, it is not as robust as traditional databases. There can be data loss in certain configurations, such as when using asynchronous persistence methods.
  • Complexity in Scaling
    Although Redis supports clustering, setting up and managing a Redis cluster can be complex and may require significant DevOps expertise.
  • Single-threaded Nature
    Redis operates on a single-threaded event loop, which can become a bottleneck for certain workloads that could benefit from multi-threading.
  • Limited Query Capabilities
    Compared to traditional relational databases, Redis offers limited querying capabilities. Complex queries and joins are not supported natively.
  • License
    As of Redis 6 and higher, the Redis modules are under the Server Side Public License (SSPL), which may be restrictive for some use cases compared to more permissive open-source licenses.

Ably features and specs

  • Scalability
    Ably is designed to handle a massive number of concurrent connections and messages, making it scalable for both small and large applications.
  • Real-time Messaging
    Ably provides robust real-time messaging capabilities with low latency, supporting use-cases like live chat, gaming, and real-time data streaming.
  • Global Presence
    Ably has a globally distributed network, ensuring low latency and high availability for users around the world.
  • Advanced Features
    It offers advanced features such as message history, presence, and push notifications, which can enhance the functionality of real-time applications.
  • Security
    Ably includes built-in security features such as TLS encryption, token-based authentication, and private channels to ensure secure communication.
  • Extensive Documentation
    The service provides extensive and well-organized documentation, making it easier for developers to integrate and utilize its features.
  • SDKs and Libraries
    Ably offers a wide range of SDKs and libraries for different programming languages and platforms, easing the development process.
  • Reliable Delivery
    It ensures reliable message delivery with features like message queuing and message de-duplication.

Analysis of Ably

Overall verdict

  • Ably is a reliable and efficient real-time messaging platform, well-suited for applications requiring high performance and scalability. It is generally well-regarded within the developer community for its ease of use and robust feature set.

Why this product is good

  • Features
    Ably provides a comprehensive suite of features such as pub/sub messaging, presence, and history.
  • Security
    It implements robust security practices including TLS encryption, token-based authentication, and private channels.
  • Integration
    Supports numerous protocols and provides SDKs for various programming languages, making it easy to integrate with different systems.
  • Reliability
    Ably offers high availability and low latency, ensuring messages are delivered in real-time.
  • Scalability
    The platform can handle millions of active connections and is designed for horizontal scaling.

Recommended for

  • developers building real-time applications like chat apps, dashboards, or multiplayer games
  • businesses in need of a scalable solution for live updates and notifications
  • teams looking for a platform with strong security and compliance credentials
  • organizations requiring integration with existing development workflows and tools

Redis videos

Improve your Redis developer experience with RedisInsight, Redis Labs

More videos:

  • Review - What is Redis? | Why and When to use Redis? | Tech Primers
  • Review - Redis Labs "Why NoSQL is a Safe Bet"
  • Review - Redis Enterprise Overview with Yiftach Shoolman - Redis Labs
  • Review - Redis system design | Distributed cache System design
  • Review - What is Redis and What Does It Do?
  • Review - Redis Sorted Sets Explained

Ably videos

How to build a collaborative environment around your product

More videos:

  • Demo - How to build an avatar stack with Ably Spaces
  • Demo - Ably 101: Serverless WebSockets at scale

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Redis and Ably)
Databases
100 100%
0% 0
Mobile Push Messaging
0 0%
100% 100
NoSQL Databases
100 100%
0% 0
Developer Tools
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Redis and Ably

Redis Reviews

Redis Alternative for App Performance | Gigaspaces
Redis offers a RESTful API for accessing data stored within its in-memory technology data structures. This API provides a simple and efficient way to interact with Redis, enabling developers to leverage its capabilities seamlessly in their applications. Developers also need to manage the Redis cached data lifecycle, it’s the application responsibility to store the data &...
Are Free, Open-Source Message Queues Right For You?
A notable challenge with Redis Streams is that it doesn't natively support distributed, horizontal scaling. Also, while Redis is famous for its speed and simplicity, managing and scaling a Redis installation may be complex for some users, particularly for persistent data workloads.
Source: blog.iron.io
Redis vs. KeyDB vs. Dragonfly vs. Skytable | Hacker News
1. Redis: I'll start with Redis which I'd like to call the "original" key/value store (after memcached) because it is the oldest and most widely used of all. Being a long-time follower of Redis, I do know it's single-threaded (and uses io-threads since 6.0) and hence it achieves lesser throughput than the other stores listed above which are multi-threaded, at least to some...
Memcached vs Redis - More Different Than You Would Expect
Remember when I wrote about how Redis was using malloc to assign memory? I lied. While Redis did use malloc at some point, these days Redis actually uses jemalloc. The reason for this is that jemalloc, while having lower peak performance has lower memory fragmentation helping to solve the framented memory issues that Redis experiences.
Top 15 Kafka Alternatives Popular In 2021
Redis is a known, open-source, in-memory data structure store that offers different data structures like lists, strings, hashes, sets, bitmaps, streams, geospatial indexes, etc. It is best utilized as a cache, memory broker, and cache. It has optional durability and inbuilt replication potential. It offers a great deal of availability through Redis Sentinel and Redis Cluster.

Ably Reviews

We have no reviews of Ably yet.
Be the first one to post

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Redis should be more popular than Ably. It has been mentiond 218 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Redis mentions (218)

  • Cache Invalidation: The Silent Performance Killer
    Picture this: you've just built a snappy web app, and you're feeling pretty good about it. You've added Redis to cache frequently accessed data, and your app is flying—pages load in milliseconds, users are happy, and you're a rockstar. But then, a user updates their profile, and… oops. The app still shows their old info. Or worse, a new blog post doesn't appear on the homepage. What's going on? Welcome to the... - Source: dev.to / 10 days ago
  • Feature Comparison: Reliable Queue vs. Valkey and Redis Stream
    Valkey and Redis streams are data structures that act like append-only logs with some added features. Redisson PRO, the Valkey and Redis client for Java developers, improves on this concept with its Reliable Queue feature. - Source: dev.to / 16 days ago
  • Finding Bigfoot with Async Generators + TypeScript
    Of course, these examples are just toys. A more proper use for asynchronous generators is handling things like reading files, accessing network services, and calling slow running things like AI models. So, I'm going to use an asynchronous generator to access a networked service. That service is Redis and we'll be using Node Redis and Redis Query Engine to find Bigfoot. - Source: dev.to / 30 days ago
  • Caching Isn’t Always the Answer – And Here’s Why
    Slap on some Redis, sprinkle in a few set() calls, and boom—10x faster responses. - Source: dev.to / 30 days ago
  • RisingWave Turns Four: Our Journey Beyond Democratizing Stream Processing
    Real-time serving: Many push processed data into low-latency serving layers like Redis to power applications needing instant responses (think fraud detection, live recommendations, financial dashboards). - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
View more

Ably mentions (23)

  • Real-Time Authorization in a Chat Application with Permit.io and WebSockets
    For our web socket-based application, we’ll be using Next.js and Ably, a service that allows us to easily integrate and manage real-time capabilities in our apps powered by web socket. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • Curiosity: Using Ably.io Realtime Messaging as a Lightweight Database
    Ably offers various solutions for developers, with their most popular being realtime messaging based on the pub/sub model. When you publish a message to a channel, all devices connected to that channel receive it instantly. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • Chat API pricing: Comparing MAU and per-minute consumption models
    A per-minute consumption model goes beyond traditional consumption-based pricing by billing customers based on their actual usage of service resources—connection time, channels, and messages. This approach directly addresses the inefficiencies inherent in MAU pricing models. This isn’t a common model in the industry, but we’ve adopted it here at Ably to meet the usage needs of our customers at scale. - Source: dev.to / 6 months ago
  • Essential guide to WebSocket authentication
    Of course, if this all sounds like a headache, you might consider Ably. Apart from solving the authentication problem, Ably provides additional features you’d need to implement on top of WebSockets like Presence and message queues, and provides production guarantees that will be time-consuming or costly to achieve on your own like 99.999% uptime guarantee, exactly-once delivery, and guaranteed message ordering. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • The top real-time notification services for building in-app notifications
    Ably is a robust real-time data delivery platform based on WebSockets with features like message ordering, presence, and connection recovery. Customers include Toyota, HubSpot, and Verizon. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Redis and Ably, you can also consider the following products

MongoDB - MongoDB (from "humongous") is a scalable, high-performance NoSQL database.

Pusher - Pusher is a hosted API for quickly, easily and securely adding scalable realtime functionality via WebSockets to web and mobile apps.

ArangoDB - A distributed open-source database with a flexible data model for documents, graphs, and key-values.

Trophy.so - Ship gamification in hours, not months.

Apache Cassandra - The Apache Cassandra database is the right choice when you need scalability and high availability without compromising performance.

Mambo.io - Use the Mambo gamification platform to engage your teams, measure activities, set goals and increase the overall performance of your business.