it's higher level. Not a plain key value stuff. For instance as value you can have a list or a set, push/pop elements, ask the server for all the keys matching

it's higher level. Not a plain key value stuff. For instance as value you can have a list or a set, push/pop elements, ask the server for all the keys matching a given glob style pattern and so on. Most of this operations are atomic in order to make sure there are no race conditions. You can read more about the difference between Redis and other key-value stores here: http://code.google.com/p/redis/wiki/FAQ http://code.google.com/p/redis/wiki/FAQ Basically the long term goal is to have something between a relational DB and a key-value DB. Not all the higher level features must be killed in order to be scalable.