Redis EOL Feb 28: 75% Already Fled to Valkey

Why Redis Lost 75% of Users in 10 Months

Remember when Redis was synonymous with reliable open-source infrastructure?

Here's what actually happened: On March 20, 2024, Redis Ltd flipped the licensing model from BSD (fully open) to a dual RSAL/SSPL model. Translation: if you run Redis as a managed service or deploy it in the cloud for customers, Redis Ltd now wants a cut. Two days later, AWS, Google Cloud, and Oracle launched Valkey — a BSD-licensed fork that preserves the original open-source contract.

The fallout was immediate and brutal. According to a January 2026 TFIR report, 75% of Redis users have already migrated or are actively migrating to Valkey. That's three out of four production infrastructures abandoning ship.

The most telling part? Redis Ltd's radio silence. Since March 2024, the company hasn't published a single blog post, press release, or retention strategy addressing Valkey. Their last public mention of the fork was an April 2024 corporate tweet claiming "Redis remains the best enterprise option." Meanwhile:

• AWS ElastiCache made Valkey the default engine in April 2024
• Google Cloud Memorystore added Valkey support in May 2024
• Oracle Cloud rolled out Valkey in June 2024
• Microsoft Azure documentation now includes language about "evaluating alternatives"

GitHub tells the real story: Redis has 847 open issues complaining about the license change. Valkey gained 12,000 stars in 10 months (now at 15,200) with 189 active contributors. Docker Hub logged over 50 million pulls of the official Valkey image since launch.

On Reddit r/redis, the top post of the past year reads: "Migrated 47 Redis instances to Valkey in production, zero issues." It has 834 upvotes and hundreds of comments sharing similar success stories.

Why this matters even if you're not AWS: Redis powers Twitter, GitHub, Snapchat, Hulu, and StackOverflow. Over 18,000 companies now face a binary choice: pay commercial licensing fees or migrate. The data shows which option won.

Valkey isn't a scrappy indie fork — it's Linux Foundation-backed infrastructure with engineering muscle from the three largest clouds (minus Microsoft). Here's why it's not just "Redis with a different name":

Valkey 8.0 (released December 2025) shipped features Redis promised but never delivered: better memory handling for large clusters, Kubernetes-specific commands, and performance improvements for concurrent write workloads.

The strategic advantage: while Redis Ltd allocates resources to its enterprise model, Valkey has AWS and Google engineers optimizing for real-world use cases they face at planetary scale.

Step-by-Step: Migrate Before February 28 Without Data Loss

You have 20 days until February 28, 2026 — the date Redis Enterprise 7.2 reaches end-of-life. After that, Redis Ltd stops publishing security patches. If a critical vulnerability drops, you're on your own (or paying enterprise licensing fees).

Here's your no-drama migration checklist:

Step 1: Audit Your Current Setup (30 minutes)

• Check your Redis version: redis-server --version
• Document all commands/features your app uses
• List any custom modules (low probability, but verify)
• Heads up: If you use RedisJSON, RedisGraph, or RedisSearch, verify Valkey ports exist (spoiler: they do, maintained by original authors)

Step 2: Test Valkey in Staging (2 hours)

• Install Valkey 8.0: docker pull valkey/valkey:8.0 (identical command to Redis)
• Replicate your data: if running Redis 7.x, use redis-cli --rdb /tmp/dump.rdb then valkey-cli --rdb /tmp/dump.rdb
• Run your full test suite against Valkey
• Heads up: Your Grafana/Datadog dashboards likely use redis_* metrics. Update queries to valkey_* (Valkey exports both namespaces for compatibility)

Step 3: Production Migration (4 hours, depending on setup)

• Zero downtime: If using replication, add a Valkey replica, wait for sync, promote to master
• Brief downtime (5-10 min): RDB backup, shut down Redis, spin up Valkey with same RDB, update config
• Cloud-managed: If on AWS ElastiCache or GCP Memorystore, just change engine type in console (they handle migration)
• Pro tip: SSL/TLS connections use identical certificates to Redis. No security config changes required.
• Pro tip: If using Redis Sentinel for HA, Valkey includes valkey-sentinel with 100% compatibility. Same config file.

Real talk: even though Valkey promises full compatibility, do a dry-run in staging. Not because Valkey will fail — but because there's always that one legacy app using a deprecated Redis 2.8 command nobody documented.

The 25% Still on Redis: What's Holding Them Back?

If 75% migrated, who's the 25% still on official Redis? It's not loyalty — it's being trapped by contracts, corporate compliance, or specific technical dependencies.

Case 1: Multi-year enterprise contracts

Companies that signed 3-5 year Redis Ltd contracts before the license change are in legal limbo. Migrating to Valkey might violate contract terms (probably not, but Legal needs to approve). Some prefer waiting for contract expiry in 2027 over dealing with lawyers.

Case 2: Certifications and audits

Regulated industries (fintech, healthcare, government) require vendor-certified stacks. Redis Ltd has those certifications (SOC 2, ISO 27001, etc.). Valkey is pursuing them, but the process takes months. The risk? Failing a compliance audit costs more than paying the license.

Case 3: Enterprise-exclusive features

Redis Enterprise has Active-Active Geo-Distribution and CRDTs (Conflict-free Replicated Data Types) that Valkey hasn't fully implemented yet. If your app depends on multi-region replication with automatic conflict resolution, migrating today means rewriting business logic.

What happens to this 25% after February 28? Three paths:

1. Pay enterprise licensing: Redis Ltd is betting on this. Pricing isn't public, but LinkedIn rumors suggest it starts at $50,000/year for medium deployments.

2. Stay on Redis 7.2 without support: Risky. Any critical CVE after EOL leaves you exposed. December 2025 saw a remote code execution vulnerability in Redis 6.x — without patches, that would've been catastrophic.

3. Panic-migrate in March: Possible but dangerous. Rushed migrations are where disasters happen (someone forgot the backup, replica didn't sync, 6-hour downtime at 3 AM).

The unanswered question: will Redis Ltd offer paid extended support for 7.2 after EOL? As of today, total silence. Their strategy appears to be "force urgency," but that's only accelerating the Valkey migration.

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Disclaimer: I haven't tested Valkey in production at millions-of-requests scale (my hands-on experience is limited to staging deployments with synthetic load testing). But community reports and documented cases from AWS and Google suggest compatibility is solid.

Here's the thing though: in 2026, an infrastructure vendor that changes the rules without a transparent transition strategy is betting that migration costs exceed licensing costs. For 75%, that bet failed. The next 20 days will show whether the remaining 25% jump ship or sink with it.