InfluxDB vs Redis
A detailed comparison
Compare InfluxDB and Redis for time series and OLAP workloads
Learn About Time Series DatabasesChoosing the right database is a critical choice when building any software application. All databases have different strengths and weaknesses when it comes to performance, so deciding which database has the most benefits and the most minor downsides for your specific use case and data model is an important decision. Below you will find an overview of the key concepts, architecture, features, use cases, and pricing models of InfluxDB and Redis so you can quickly see how they compare against each other.
The primary purpose of this article is to compare how InfluxDB and Redis perform for workloads involving time series data, not for all possible use cases. Time series data typically presents a unique challenge in terms of database performance. This is due to the high volume of data being written and the query patterns to access that data. This article doesn’t intend to make the case for which database is better; it simply provides an overview of each database so you can make an informed decision.
InfluxDB vs Redis Breakdown
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| Database Model | In-memory database |
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| Architecture | Cloud native architecture that can be used as a managed cloud service or self-managed on your own hardware locally |
Redis can be deployed on-premises, in the cloud, or as a managed service |
| License | MIT |
BSD 3 |
| Use Cases | Monitoring, observability, IoT, real-time analytics |
Caching, message brokering, real-time analytics, session storage, geospatial data processing |
| Scalability | Horizontally scalable with decoupled storage and compute with InfluxDB 3.0 delivers up to 90% reduced storage costs( benchmarks ) |
Horizontally scalable via partitioning and clustering, supports data replication |
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InfluxDB Overview
InfluxDB is a high-performance, time series database capable of storing any form of time series data, such as metrics, events, logs and traces. InfluxDB is developed by InfluxData and first released in 2013. InfluxDB is an open source database written in Go, with a focus on performance, scalability, and developer productivity. The database is optimized for handling time series data at scale, making it a popular choice for use cases involving monitoring performance metrics, IoT data, and real-time analytics.
InfluxDB 3.0 is the newest version of InfluxDB, currently available in InfluxDB Cloud Serverless and InfluxDB Cloud Dedicated. Built in Rust, a modern programming language designed for performance, safety, and memory management. InfluxDB also features a decoupled architecture that allows compute and storage to be scaled independently. InfluxDB 3.0 provides query support for both SQL and InfluxQL (custom SQL-like query language with added support for time-based functions).
Redis Overview
Redis, which stands for Remote Dictionary Server, is an open-source, in-memory data structure store that can be used as a database, cache, and message broker. It was created by Salvatore Sanfilippo in 2009 and has since gained significant popularity due to its high performance and flexibility. Redis supports various data structures, such as strings, hashes, lists, sets, sorted sets with range queries, bitmaps, hyperloglogs, and geospatial indexes with radius queries.
InfluxDB for Time Series Data
InfluxDB is specifically designed for time series data, making it well-suited for applications that involve tracking and analyzing data points over time. It excels in scenarios where data is being written continuously at high volumes while users also require the ability to query that data quickly after ingest for monitoring and real time analytics use cases.
Redis for Time Series Data
Redis has a dedicated module for working with time series data called RedisTimeSeries. RedisTimeSeries offers functionality like downsampling, data retention policies, and specialized queries for time series data in Redis. Being an in-memory database, Redis will be very fast for reading and writing time series data, but due to the cost of RAM compared to disk using Redis could become expensive depending on the size of your dataset. If your use case doesn’t require extremely fast response times, you could save money by going with a more traditional time series database.
InfluxDB Key Concepts
- Columnar storage: InfluxDB stores data in a column-oriented format, using Parquet for persistent file storage and Apache Arrow as the in-memory representation of data. Columnar storage results in better data compression and faster queries for analytics workloads.
- Data Model: The InfluxDB data model will be familiar to anyone who has worked with other database systems. At the highest level are buckets, which are similar to what other systems call databases. InfluxDB measurements are synonymous with tables. Specific data points for a measurement contain tags and values. Tags are used as part of the primary key for querying data and should be used for identifying information used for filtering during queries. InfluxDB is schemaless so new fields can be added without requiring migrations or modifying a schema.
- Integrations: InfluxDB is built to be flexible and fit into your application’s architecture. One key aspect of this is the many ways InfluxDB makes it easy to read and write data. To start, all database functionality can be accessed via HTTP API or with the InfluxDB CLI. For writing data InfluxDB created Telegraf, a tool that can collect data from hundreds of different sources via plugins and write that data to InfluxDB. Client libraries are also available for the most popular programming languages to allow writing and querying data.
- Decoupled architecture: InfluxDB 3.0 features a decoupled architecture which allows query compute, data ingestion, and storage to be scaled independently. This allows InfluxDB to be fine-tuned for your use case and results in significant cost savings.
- Query Languages: InfluxDB can be queried using standard SQL or InfluxQL, an SQL dialect with a number of specialized functions useful for working with time series data.
- Retention Policies: InfluxDB allows you to define retention policies that determine how long data is stored before being automatically deleted. This is useful for managing the storage of high volume time series data.
Redis Key Concepts
- In-memory store: Redis stores data in memory, which allows for faster data access and manipulation compared to disk-based databases .
- Data structures: Redis supports a wide range of data structures, including strings, hashes, lists, sets, and more, which provide flexibility in how data is modeled and stored.
- Persistence: Redis offers optional data persistence, allowing data to be periodically saved to disk or written to a log for durability.
- Pub/Sub: Redis provides a publish/subscribe messaging system, enabling real-time communication between clients without the need for a centralized message broker.
InfluxDB Architecture
At a high level, InfluxDB’s architecture is designed to optimize storage and query performance for time series data. The exact architecture of InfluxDB will vary slightly depending on the version and how you deploy InfluxDB.
InfluxDB 3.0’s architecture can be broken down into four key components that operate almost independently from each other, allowing for InfluxDB to be extremely flexible in terms of configuration. These components are are data ingest, data querying, data compaction, and garbage collection. Data is written via the ingesters with millisecond latency. This data can be queried almost immediately by the data queriers while in the background the compactor takes the newly written data files and combines them into larger files that will be sent to object storage. The garbage collector is responsible for data retention and space reclamations by scheduling soft and hard deletion of data.
They key part of InfluxDB’s architecture is the separation of the ingest and query components, which allows each to be scaled independently depending on the current write and query workload. The querier being able to seamlessly pull in recently written data from the ingesters as well as from object storage allows data to be stored cheaply without increasing query latency.
Redis Architecture
Redis is a NoSQL database that uses a key-value data model, where each key is associated with a value stored as one of Redis’ supported data structures. The database is single-threaded, which simplifies its internal architecture and reduces contention. Redis can be deployed as a standalone server, a cluster, or a master-replica setup for scalability and high availability. The Redis Cluster mode automatically shards data across multiple nodes, providing data partitioning and fault tolerance.
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InfluxDB Features
High-performance storage and querying
InfluxDB is optimized for time series data, providing high-performance storage and querying capabilities. In terms of storage InfluxDB is able to scale effortlessly due to its decoupled architecture. Object storage is used to persist data and query nodes can be scaled independently to improve query performance and capacity.
Compared to previous versions of InfluxDB, the newly released InfluxDB 3.0 compresses data 4.5x more effectively and queries are 2.5-45x faster depending on the type of query.
Retention policies
InfluxDB allows users to define retention policies that automatically delete data points after a specified duration. This feature helps manage data storage costs and ensures that only relevant data is retained.
Data compression
InfluxDB’s storage engine automatically compacts data on disk, reducing storage requirements and improving query performance. With InfluxDB 3.0 data is stored using the Parquet file format to get even higher compression ratios on time series data.
Horizontal scaling and clustering
InfluxDB supports horizontal scaling and clustering, allowing users to distribute data across multiple nodes for increased performance and fault tolerance.
Data tiering
InfluxDB 3.0 is able to seamlessly move data from cheap object storage into faster storage for low latency queries without expensive SSD or high amounts of RAM utilization. This allows users to store data for longer at higher frequencies while still saving in storage costs.
Redis Features
Atomicity
Redis supports atomic operations on complex data types, allowing developers to perform powerful operations without worrying about race conditions or other concurrent processing issues.
Broad data structure support
Redis supports a range of data structures such as lists, sets, sorted sets, hashes, bitmaps, hyperloglog, and geospatial indexes. This flexibility allows developers to use Redis for a wide variety of tasks by using data structures that are optimized for their data in terms of performance characteristics.
Pub/Sub messaging
Redis provides a publish/subscribe messaging system for real-time communication between clients.
Lua Scripting
Developers can run Lua scripts in the Redis server, enabling complex operations to be executed atomically in the server itself, reducing network round trips.
InfluxDB Use Cases
Monitoring and alerting
InfluxDB is widely used for monitoring and alerting purposes, as it can efficiently store and process time series data generated by various systems, applications, and devices. With its high-performance query engine and integration with visualization tools like Grafana, users can create real-time dashboards and set up alerts based on specific conditions or thresholds.
IoT data storage and analysis
Due to its high write and query performance, InfluxDB is an ideal choice for storing and analyzing IoT data generated by sensors, devices, and applications. Users can leverage InfluxDB’s scalability and retention policies to manage large volumes of time series data, and use its powerful query languages to gain insights into the IoT ecosystem.
Real-time analytics
InfluxDB’s performance and flexibility make it suitable for real-time analytics use cases, such as tracking user behavior, monitoring application performance, and analyzing financial data. With its support for InfluxQL and SQL, users can perform complex data analysis and aggregation in real-time, enabling them to make data-driven decisions.
Redis Use Cases
Caching
Redis is often used as a cache to store frequently accessed data and reduce the load on other databases or services, improving application performance and reducing latency.
Task queues
Redis can be used to implement task queues, which are useful for managing tasks that take longer to process and should be executed asynchronously. This is particularly common in web applications, where background tasks can be processed independently of the request/response cycle
Real-time analysis and machine learning
Redis’ high performance and low-latency data access make it suitable for real-time analysis and machine learning applications, such as processing streaming data, media streaming, and handling time-series data. This can be achieved using Redis’ data structures and capabilities like sorted sets, timestamps, and pub/sub messaging.
InfluxDB Pricing Model
InfluxDB offers several pricing options, including a free open source version, a cloud-based offering, and an enterprise edition for on-premises deployment:
- InfluxDB Cloud Serverless: InfluxDB Cloud Serverless is a managed, cloud-based offering with a pay-as-you-go pricing model. It provides additional features, such as monitoring, alerting, and data visualization. InfluxDB Cloud is available across all major cloud providers.
- InfluxDB Cloud Dedicated - This is a managed cloud solution that provides an isolated InfluxDB instance on dedicated hardware for use cases that require isolation or benefit from being able to specify and fine-tune hardware configuration.
- InfluxDB Enterprise: On-prem solution with enterprise features for security and support for clustering and other horizontal scaling options.
- InfluxDB Open Source: The open source version of InfluxDB is free to use and provides the core functionality of the database.
Redis Pricing Model
Redis is open-source software, which means it can be deployed and used freely on your own infrastructure. However, there are also managed Redis services available, such as Redis Enterprise which offer additional features, support, and ease of deployment. Pricing for these services typically depends on factors like the size of the instance, data storage, and data transfer.
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