Redis is a data structure server that lives in memory. It's fast because reads and writes never touch a disk during normal operation. It's versatile because it supports more than just key-value pairs — strings, hashes, sorted sets, lists, streams, and pub/sub channels are all first-class primitives.
Most developers use Redis as a cache. That's a fine starting point, but it undersells what Redis can do: session storage, rate limiting, leaderboards, job queues, real-time event streams, and distributed locks are all solved with Redis primitives rather than custom code.
This guide covers Redis from setup through production patterns using Node.js and TypeScript.
Setup
Local with Docker
