# Upstash Redis vs Redis Cloud

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/compare/upstash-redis-vs-redis-cloud/

Every value below is read from Upstash Redis's and Redis Cloud's own documentation. See https://inetgeek.com/methodology/ for how.

## At a glance

| Criterion | Upstash Redis | Redis Cloud |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Entry paid plan | $0.20 per 100,000 commands on Pay as You Go, with up to 100 GB data. Fixed monthly plans are also offered. | Essentials: from $0.007/hour, $5/month total. 250 MB-100 GB RAM and SSD, single DB. |
| Pricing model | Command-based billing on Pay as You Go ($0.20 per 100K commands); Fixed plans offer flat monthly rates instead. | On-demand hourly billing. Data transfer is included in the price, with limits. |
| Multi-region replication | Supported on Fixed and Enterprise tiers. Each additional read region adds $5 to the Fixed 250MB tier's monthly cost, scaling upward with plan size. | Not available on Free or Essentials. The Pro plan adds active-active (multi-region) replication and private connectivity. |

## Where they differ

### Entry paid plan

- Upstash Redis: $0.20 per 100,000 commands on Pay as You Go, with up to 100 GB data. Fixed monthly plans are also offered. ([source](https://upstash.com/pricing))
- Redis Cloud: Essentials: from $0.007/hour, $5/month total. 250 MB-100 GB RAM and SSD, single DB. ([source](https://redis.io/pricing/))

### Pricing model

- Upstash Redis: Command-based billing on Pay as You Go ($0.20 per 100K commands); Fixed plans offer flat monthly rates instead. ([source](https://upstash.com/pricing))
- Redis Cloud: On-demand hourly billing. Data transfer is included in the price, with limits. ([source](https://redis.io/pricing/))

### Multi-region replication

- Upstash Redis: Supported on Fixed and Enterprise tiers. Each additional read region adds $5 to the Fixed 250MB tier's monthly cost, scaling upward with plan size. ([source](https://upstash.com/pricing))
- Redis Cloud: Not available on Free or Essentials. The Pro plan adds active-active (multi-region) replication and private connectivity. ([source](https://redis.io/pricing/))

## Which should you choose?

Pick Upstash Redis if Serverless and edge apps with spiky or low-baseline traffic — per-command billing means an idle app costs close to nothing, and the free tier covers real prototyping.

Pick Redis Cloud if Teams that want Redis from the company that maintains it, with an on-demand hourly Essentials tier cheap enough to run a small production workload without committing to a fixed plan.

Consider something else: Upstash Redis — Traffic is large and steady rather than spiky — a flat-rate Redis plan is usually cheaper than metered commands once volume is predictable.

Consider something else: Redis Cloud — Multi-region active-active replication is needed on a small budget — that's a Pro-tier feature here, where a serverless competitor may price per-region replication into a lower-cost plan.

## Documented by only one

- Max dataset size, entry plan: Upstash Redis: Up to 100 GB on Pay as You Go. Fixed plans range from 250 MB to 500 GB; Enterprise supports up to 10 TB.
- Data persistence: Upstash Redis: Durable — data stays persistent in the cloud provider's block storage for durability and high availability, not an in-memory-only cache.
- Similarity metrics supported: Redis Cloud: Cosine similarity is documented as a supported distance metric in Redis's vector field schema (DISTANCE_METRIC: COSINE in example code); other metrics were not confirmed in what is sourced here.
- Metadata filtering: Redis Cloud: Supported — a vector KNN query can be combined with a pre-filter on other indexed fields in the same query.

## Questions this comparison answers

**Entry paid plan: Upstash Redis or Redis Cloud?**

Upstash Redis: $0.20 per 100,000 commands on Pay as You Go, with up to 100 GB data. Fixed monthly plans are also offered.
Redis Cloud: Essentials: from $0.007/hour, $5/month total. 250 MB-100 GB RAM and SSD, single DB.

**Should I choose Upstash Redis or Redis Cloud?**

Pick Upstash Redis if Serverless and edge apps with spiky or low-baseline traffic — per-command billing means an idle app costs close to nothing, and the free tier covers real prototyping.
Pick Redis Cloud if Teams that want Redis from the company that maintains it, with an on-demand hourly Essentials tier cheap enough to run a small production workload without committing to a fixed plan.
