Getting Started with Node and Redis

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Author:

Ajeet Raina, Former Developer Growth Manager at Redis

Author:

Simon Prickett, Principal Developer Advocate at Redis

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Find tutorials, examples and technical articles that will help you to develop with Redis and Node.js/JavaScript:

Introduction

Redis is an open source, in-memory, key-value data store most commonly used as a primary database, cache, message broker, and queue. Redis cache delivers sub-millisecond response times, enabling fast and powerful real-time applications in industries such as gaming, fintech, ad-tech, social media, healthcare, and IoT.

Redis is a great database for use with Node. Both Redis and Node share similar type conventions and threading models, which makes for a very predictable development experience. By pairing Node and Redis together you can achieve a scalable and productive development platform.

Redis has two primary Node clients which are node-redis and ioredis. Both are available through npm. We generally suggest using node-redis, as it has wide support for Redis modules, is easily extended, and is widely used.

Check out a list of Redis clients that the community has built for Node here.

This article shows how to get started with the recommended libraries: node-redis and ioredis.

node-redis

Step 1. Run a Redis server

You can either run Redis in a Docker container or directly on your Mac OS. Use the following commands to setup a Redis server locally:

 brew tap redis-stack/redis-stack
 brew install --cask redis-stack

INFO

Redis Stack unifies and simplifies the developer experience of the leading Redis data store, modules and the capabilities they provide. Redis Stack bundles five Redis modules: RedisJSON, RedisSearch, RedisGraph, RedisTimeSeries, and RedisBloom. Learn more

Ensure that you are able to use the following Redis command to connect to the Redis instance.

 redis-cli
 localhost>

Now you should be able to perform CRUD operations with Redis keys. The above Redis client command might require password if you have setup authentication in your Redis configuration file. Refer Redis Command Reference

Step 2. Install node redis using NPM (or YARN)

Run the following NPM command to install the Redis client.

  npm install redis

Step 2. Write your Application Code

Use the following sample code for our Node.js application:

import { createClient } from 'redis';

async function nodeRedisDemo() {
  try {
    const client = createClient();
    await client.connect();

    await client.set('mykey', 'Hello from node redis');
    const myKeyValue = await client.get('mykey');
    console.log(myKeyValue);

    const numAdded = await client.zAdd('vehicles', [
      {
        score: 4,
        value: 'car',
      },
      {
        score: 2,
        value: 'bike',
      },
    ]);
    console.log(`Added ${numAdded} items.`);

    for await (const { score, value } of client.zScanIterator('vehicles')) {
      console.log(`${value} -> ${score}`);
    }

    await client.quit();
  } catch (e) {
    console.error(e);
  }
}

nodeRedisDemo();

ioredis

Step 1. Install ioredis using npm (or yarn)

 npm install ioredis

Step 2. Write your Application Code

const Redis = require('ioredis');

async function ioredisDemo() {
  try {
    const client = new Redis();

    await client.set('mykey', 'Hello from io-redis!');
    const myKeyValue = await client.get('mykey');
    console.log(myKeyValue);

    const numAdded = await client.zadd('vehicles', 4, 'car', 2, 'bike');
    console.log(`Added ${numAdded} items.`);

    const stream = client.zscanStream('vehicles');

    stream.on('data', (items) => {
      // items = array of value, score, value, score...
      for (let n = 0; n < items.length; n += 2) {
        console.log(`${items[n]} -> ${items[n + 1]}`);
      }
    });

    stream.on('end', async () => {
      await client.quit();
    });
  } catch (e) {
    console.error(e);
  }
}

ioredisDemo();

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Redis Launchpad

Redis Launchpad is like an “App Store” for Redis sample apps. You can easily find apps for your preferred frameworks and languages. Check out a few of these apps below, or click here to access the complete list.

Hacker News Clone in NodeJS

A Hacker News Clone project built in NextJS, NodeJS and Express based on RediSearch & RedisJSON

Shopping Cart application in NodeJS

Shopping Cart app in NodeJS module functionalities

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More Developer Resources

Sample Code

Basic Redis Caching This application calls the GitHub API and caches the results into Redis.

Redis Rate-Limiting This is a very simple app that demonstrates rate-limiting feature using Redis.

Notifications with WebSocket, Vue & Redis This project allows you to push notifications in a Vue application from a Redis PUBLISH using WebSockets.

Technical Articles & Videos

Redis Rapid Tips: ioredis (YouTube)

Mapping Objects between Node and Redis (YouTube)

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Redis University

Redis for JavaScript Developers

Build full-fledged Redis applications with Node.js and Express.