Dragonfly vs Varnish Cache(2026)
Dragonfly is better for teams that need dramatically faster than redis. Varnish Cache is the stronger choice if extremely high throughput http caching. Dragonfly is open-source (from $0) and Varnish Cache is open-source (from $0).
Full feature breakdown, pricing details, and pros & cons below.
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Dragonfly
Dragonfly is a modern in-memory data store fully compatible with Redis and Memcached APIs, but up to 25x faster and more memory-efficient thanks to its multi-threaded, shared-nothing architecture.
Starting at $0
Visit DragonflyVarnish Cache
Varnish Cache is a high-performance HTTP accelerator used by the world's busiest websites. It caches HTTP responses in memory, offloading backends and serving millions of requests per second.
Starting at $0
Visit Varnish CacheHow Do Dragonfly and Varnish Cache Compare on Features?
| Feature | Dragonfly | Varnish Cache |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | open-source | open-source |
| Starting price | $0 | $0 |
| Redis API compatible | ✓ | — |
| Multi-threaded | ✓ | — |
| Up to 25x faster than Redis | ✓ | — |
| Lower memory usage | ✓ | — |
| Snapshots + replication | ✓ | — |
| Managed cloud | ✓ | — |
| Lua scripting | ✓ | — |
| HTTP/HTTPS reverse proxy | — | ✓ |
| VCL configuration language | — | ✓ |
| Edge Side Includes (ESI) | — | ✓ |
| Health checks | — | ✓ |
| Grace mode | — | ✓ |
| Hit-for-pass | — | ✓ |
| Varnish Enterprise | — | ✓ |
Dragonfly Pros and Cons vs Varnish Cache
Dragonfly
Varnish Cache
Should You Use Dragonfly or Varnish Cache?
Choose Dragonfly if…
- •Dramatically faster than Redis
- •Drop-in Redis replacement
- •Less memory usage
Choose Varnish Cache if…
- •Extremely high throughput HTTP caching
- •Flexible VCL
- •Battle-tested at internet scale