What Redis Is and When to Use It

Short summary

This opening article of a Redis Masterclass explains Redis as an in-memory data structure store, not just a cache. It covers the full range of data structures Redis supports (strings, hashes, lists, sets, sorted sets, streams, bitmaps) and maps each to real-world use cases like caching, rate limiting, queues, and leaderboards. It also clearly outlines when Redis is the wrong choice—primary database for critical data, datasets exceeding memory, or complex query needs.

• •Redis is an in-memory data structure store with atomic operations per type
• •Strong use cases: caching, sessions, rate limiting, queues, leaderboards, distributed locks
• •Redis complements a primary DB like Postgres; wrong for critical persistent storage or complex queries

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