# Memcached vs Upstash

**Leader by Vioscale score:** Upstash

| Attribute | Memcached | Upstash |
|---|---|---|
| **Vioscale score** | 54.2 (37% (low)) | 73.5 (73% (medium)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | 47 | - |
| adoption.dependent_repos | 0 | - |
| adoption.github_stars | 14,259 | - |
| deployment.options | `{"self_hosted":true}` | `{"cloud":true}` |
| description.long | A free, in-memory key-value cache designed to reduce database load and improve application performance by storing temporary copies of frequently accessed data from databases, APIs, or rendered pages. It distributes cache across multiple servers in a cluster, with each piece of data stored in a single consistent location for reliable retrieval. | A cloud platform offering serverless Redis, vector databases, message queues, and workflow orchestration designed for developers building serverless applications, with usage-based and fixed-rate pricing options. |
| features.capabilities | `{"clustering":"sharded","deployment":"self_hosted","consistency":"strong","persistence":"none","eviction_ttl":true,"storage_tier":"in_memory","transactions":"none","licence_class":"permissive","wire_protocol":"memcached","multi_threaded":true,"pubsub_streams":false,"data_structures":"kv_only","redis_api_compat":"none"}` | `{"ann_index":"HNSW","clustering":"replicated","deployment":"managed","serverless":true,"consistency":"strong","persistence":"durable","eviction_ttl":true,"storage_tier":"persistent","transactions":"multi_exec","hybrid_search":true,"licence_class":"proprietary","multi_tenancy":true,"product_class":"dedicated_dbms","wire_protocol":"resp","full_text_bm25":true,"multi_threaded":false,"pubsub_streams":true,"data_structures":"rich_types","distance_metrics":"cosine","horizontal_scale":"sharded_distributed","redis_api_compat":"full","metadata_filtering":"pre_filter"}` |
| integrations.count | - | 7 |
| integrations.list | - | `[{"name":"Cloudflare Workers"},{"name":"Auth0"},{"name":"MongoDB"},{"name":"MySQL"},{"name":"PostgreSQL"},{"name":"Debezium"},{"name":"JDBC"},{"name":"FluentBit"}]` |
| language.primary | C | - |
| license.spdx | BSD-3-Clause | - |
| market.availability | - | `{"primaryMarkets":["US"],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true,"mac":true,"linux":true}` | `{"cli":true,"web":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"open_source","summary":"Open source and free","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://memcached.org","retrievedAt":"2026-08-14T16:43:06.339Z"}` | `{"type":"hybrid","plans":[{"free":true,"name":"Pay-as-you-go","summary":"$0.20 per 100K commands, $0.25/GB after 1 GB free","features":["1 GB storage included","Automatic scaling","Per-request billing","No minimum charge when idle"],"components":[{"kind":"per_unit","unit":"100K commands","amount":0.2,"period":"per","currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"GB"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.25,"currency":"USD"}],"contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"storage":"1 GB free"}},{"free":false,"name":"Fixed Plans","summary":"$10 to $1,500/month depending on tier","features":["Entry plan: 250 MB storage, 50 GB bandwidth","High-end plan: 500 GB storage, 20 TB bandwidth, 16k commands/sec","No per-command billing","Predictable costs"],"components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":10,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"description":"Flat monthly pricing with included throughput and storage","contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Enterprise","summary":"Custom pricing","features":["100K+ commands per second","Custom SLA","Dedicated support"],"description":"Custom plans for high-throughput production workloads","contactSales":true,"includedLimits":{"throughput":"100K+ commands per second"}}],"summary":"Pay-as-you-go from $0 idle + $0.20 per 100K commands; fixed plans from $10–$1,500/month; enterprise available","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://upstash.com/blog/aws-elasticache-pricing-explained-2026-full-cost-breakdown","retrievedAt":"2026-08-24T22:36:52.447Z","startingPrice":{"amount":10,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},"billingPeriods":["month"]}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | yes |
| pricing.model | commercial | freemium |
| pricing.price_level | free | low |
| pricing.starting_price | - | `{"amount":10,"currency":"USD"}` |
| pricing.transparent | yes | yes |
| reliability.sla_pct | - | 99.99 |
| reliability.status_page | - | yes |
| security.disclosure_policy | yes | yes |
| security.gdpr | - | yes |
| security.hipaa | - | yes |
| security.scorecard | 4.5 | - |
| security.soc2 | - | yes |
| security.vulnerabilities | `{"count":0,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=helm&package_name=cloudpirates-memcached%2Fmemcached&per_page=100","last_12m":0,"max_severity":null}` | - |

## Capabilities (Key-Value Stores)

| Capability | Memcached | Upstash |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Storage** |  |  |
| Storage tier | In-memory | Persistent |
| Persistence | None (pure cache) | Fully durable |
| Data structures | KV-only | Rich types |
| **Protocol** |  |  |
| Wire protocol | Memcached | RESP (Redis) |
| **Distribution** |  |  |
| Clustering | Sharded | Replicated |
| Consistency | Strong | Strong |
| **Ops** |  |  |
| Eviction / TTL policies | ✓ | ✓ |
| Multi-threaded | ✓ | ✗ |
| Pub/Sub / streams | ✗ | ✓ |
| Transactions / atomic ops | None | MULTI-EXEC |
| **Deployment** |  |  |
| Deployment | Self-hosted | Managed |
| **Licensing** |  |  |
| Licence class | Permissive OSS | Proprietary |
| **Compatibility** |  |  |
| Redis API compatibility | None | Full |

*Source: Vioscale. Generated 2026-09-01T16:50:50.816Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*