Upstash Has a Free Serverless Redis: Zero-Config Redis and Kafka for Edge and Serverless Functions

You need Redis for caching, rate limiting, or session storage. Traditional Redis requires a server, persistent connection, and doesn't work in serverless environments where connections are ephemeral.

What if Redis worked over HTTP — no persistent connections, no server management, pay-per-request pricing?

That's Upstash. Serverless Redis and Kafka designed for edge computing and serverless functions.

Free Tier

• 10,000 commands/day
• 256 MB storage
• Global replication available

Usage

import { Redis } from "@upstash/redis";

const redis = new Redis({
  url: process.env.UPSTASH_REDIS_URL,
  token: process.env.UPSTASH_REDIS_TOKEN,
});

// Basic operations
await redis.set("user:123", { name: "Aleksej", role: "admin" });
const user = await redis.get("user:123");

// With expiration (caching)
await redis.set("cache:products", products, { ex: 3600 }); // 1 hour TTL

// Lists, sets, sorted sets — all Redis commands work
await redis.lpush("queue:tasks", "task-1", "task-2");
await redis.sadd("online:users", "user:123");
await redis.zadd("leaderboard", { score: 100, member: "player1" });

Rate Limiting (Built-in)

import { Ratelimit } from "@upstash/ratelimit";
import { Redis } from "@upstash/redis";

const ratelimit = new Ratelimit({
  redis: Redis.fromEnv(),
  limiter: Ratelimit.slidingWindow(10, "10 s"), // 10 requests per 10 seconds
});

// In your API handler
const { success, limit, remaining } = await ratelimit.limit(userId);
if (!success) return new Response("Rate limited", { status: 429 });

Works Everywhere

// Cloudflare Workers — just works (HTTP-based)
// Vercel Edge Functions — just works
// AWS Lambda — just works
// Deno Deploy — just works
// Any serverless environment — just works

No connection pooling, no TCP setup, no REDIS_URL with port and password.

Choose Upstash for serverless/edge Redis. Choose traditional Redis for high-throughput dedicated servers.

Start here: upstash.com

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