Garnet Has a Free API: Microsoft's Redis-Compatible Cache Built on .NET

#redis #dotnet #microsoft #caching

Microsoft built their own Redis. It's called Garnet, it's open source, and it's faster than Redis on their benchmarks.

What Is Garnet?

Garnet is a remote cache-store from Microsoft Research, compatible with the Redis API (RESP protocol). Built on .NET, it focuses on extreme throughput, low latency, and efficient memory usage.

docker run -p 6379:6379 ghcr.io/microsoft/garnet
redis-cli ping  # PONG — Redis compatible

Performance Claims

Microsoft's benchmarks show:

Throughput: Up to 10x higher than Redis on multi-core machines
Latency: Sub-millisecond P99 at high throughput
Memory: Better memory efficiency through tiered storage

Key Features

# Standard Redis commands work
redis-cli SET mykey "hello"
redis-cli GET mykey
redis-cli LPUSH mylist "a" "b" "c"
redis-cli HSET myhash field1 "val1" field2 "val2"
redis-cli SUBSCRIBE mychannel

1. Thread-scalable — Garnet scales with CPU cores. More cores = more throughput.

2. Tiered storage — Hot data in memory, warm data on SSD. Handle datasets larger than RAM.

3. Cluster mode — Redis Cluster protocol compatible for horizontal scaling.

4. Transactions — MULTI/EXEC with server-side stored procedures for complex operations.

5. TLS — Built-in TLS support for encrypted connections.

Use Cases

.NET shops — natural fit if your stack is already .NET
Cost optimization — handle more load per server = fewer servers
Large datasets — tiered storage means you don't need everything in RAM
Bing, Xbox, Azure — Microsoft uses Garnet internally

Redis Client Compatibility

# Python — same redis-py library
import redis
r = redis.Redis(host='localhost', port=6379)
r.set('key', 'value')
print(r.get('key'))  # b'value'

// Node.js — same ioredis library
import Redis from 'ioredis'
const redis = new Redis(6379)
await redis.set('key', 'value')
console.log(await redis.get('key'))