Zedis

A Redis-compatible in-memory data store written in Zig, designed for learning and experimentation. Zedis implements the core Redis protocol and data structures with a focus on simplicity, performance, and thread safety.

Made for learning purposes. Not intended for production use for now.

Features

• Redis Protocol Compatibility: Supports the Redis Serialization Protocol (RESP)locks.
• Multiple Data Types: String and integer value storage with automatic type conversion.
• Core Commands: Essential Redis commands including GET, SET, INCR, DECR, DEL, EXISTS, and TYPE.
• High Performance: Written in Zig for optimal performance and memory safety.
• Key Expiration: Set time-to-live (TTL) for keys with background expiration handling.
• Disk persistence (RDB): Point-in-time snapshots of your dataset.
• Append-only file (AOF): Durable write-ahead logging for data recovery.
• Memory Management: No memory allocation during command execution.
• Pub/Sub: Decoupled communication between services.
• Time Series: Time series data structure. Now with Gorilla compression!

Roadmap

See the open issues for upcoming features and improvements.

Quick Start

Download the binary from the releases page or build from source to get started with Zedis.

Prerequisites

• Zig (minimum version 0.15.1)

Building and Running

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/barddoo/zedis.git
cd zedis

# Build the project
zig build

# Run the server
zig build run

The server will start on 127.0.0.1:6379 by default.

Testing with Redis CLI

You can test Zedis using the standard redis-cli or any Redis client:

# Connect to Zedis
redis-cli -h 127.0.0.1 -p 6379

# Try some commands
127.0.0.1:6379> SET mykey "Hello, Zedis!"
OK
127.0.0.1:6379> GET mykey
"Hello, Zedis!"
127.0.0.1:6379> INCR counter
(integer) 1
127.0.0.1:6379> TYPE mykey
string

Development

Project Structure

The codebase follows Zig conventions with clear separation of concerns:

• Type-safe operations with compile-time guarantees
• Explicit error handling throughout
• Memory safety
• Modular design for easy extension
• Comprehensive logging for debugging

Memory Management

All memory allocations are handled during the initialization phase. No dynamic memory allocation occurs during command execution, ensuring high performance and predictability. Hugely inspired by this article.

Building for Development

# Build in debug mode (default)
zig build -Doptimize=Debug

# Build optimized release
zig build -Doptimize=ReleaseFast

# Run tests (when available)
zig build test

Stay Connected

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Thanks

• Andrew Kelley - For creating the amazing Zig Language.
• Redis - For the inspiration and protocol design.
• TigerBeetle - For the memory management and the tiger style.
• Karl Seguin - For the great articles.