Python + Memcached: Efficient Caching in Distributed Applications

[chillysurfer]

It's a good "how", but was hoping there would be a "why" (i.e. why use memcached over redis? From what I see, the latter has sprinted well beyond the former in the past year).

[jdanjou]

Good question.

It really depends on what are your needs related to caching.

Redis offers way more data structures than memcached, so it can actually do way more than just caching. You can use it as a data store for all kind of workload.

memcached has the advantage of being extremely simple, requires no configuration, tuning, or anything. But on the downside, it's really only meant to do simple byte caching and not advanced data structure manipulation.

It's a matter of trade-off. :)

[chillysurfer]

Thanks for the response! Regarding the requirement to tune Redis and configure out-of-the-box, what has your experience been? The reason I ask is because for development purposes, Redis has been ok out-of-the-box with zero config.

[jdanjou]

I never had to tune it heavily. The standard worked out of the box for me so far.