Garnet Has a Free Redis-Compatible Cache From Microsoft — Built on .NET

Microsoft built their own Redis alternative. It's open-source, runs on .NET, and outperforms Redis on their benchmarks.

What is Garnet?

Garnet is a remote cache-store from Microsoft Research, compatible with Redis's RESP protocol. Built on .NET, it's designed for high throughput and low latency, especially on cloud VMs.

Why Microsoft Built Garnet

1. Redis API Compatible

import redis
r = redis.Redis(host='localhost', port=6379)

# Standard Redis commands
r.set('session:abc', json.dumps({'user': 'alice'}))
r.get('session:abc')
r.hset('user:1', mapping={'name': 'Alice', 'score': '100'})
r.lpush('events', 'login', 'pageview')

2. Designed for Cloud VMs

Garnet is optimized for modern cloud hardware:

• Uses all CPU cores efficiently
• Minimizes memory allocations (less GC pressure)
• Optimized for NUMA architectures
• Supports tiered storage (RAM + SSD)

3. Thread-Scalable Architecture

# Garnet scales linearly with cores
# 4 cores:  400K ops/sec
# 16 cores: 1.5M ops/sec
# 64 cores: 5M+ ops/sec

4. Cluster Mode

# Start with cluster mode
GarnetServer --cluster-enabled

Supports Redis cluster protocol for horizontal scaling.

5. Custom Extensions

// Write custom commands in C#
public class MyCommand : CustomRawStringCommand
{
    public override bool Execute(
        IGarnetApi garnetApi,
        ref RawStringInput input,
        ref GarnetObjectStoreOutput output)
    {
        // Custom logic with full access to the store
        garnetApi.SET(key, value);
        return true;
    }
}

Extend Garnet with C# — no Lua scripting limitations.

Performance

Benchmark	Redis 7	Garnet
GET (single thread)	100K/s	120K/s
GET (16 threads)	100K/s	1.2M/s
SET (batch)	450K/s	2.1M/s
Latency P99	0.5ms	0.3ms

Garnet vs Redis vs Dragonfly

	Garnet	Redis	Dragonfly
Runtime	.NET	C	C++
Threading	Multi-threaded	Single	Shared-nothing
Extensions	C#	Lua	No
License	MIT	SSPL	BSL
Tiered storage	Yes	No	Yes
Maintainer	Microsoft	Redis Ltd	DragonflyDB

Getting Started

# Docker
docker run -p 6379:6379 ghcr.io/microsoft/garnet

# From source
git clone https://github.com/microsoft/garnet.git
cd garnet
dotnet restore
dotnet run -c Release -f net8.0 --project main/GarnetServer

The Bottom Line

Garnet brings .NET's reliability and Microsoft's backing to the cache-store world. MIT-licensed, Redis-compatible, and designed for modern cloud hardware.

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