# memcached/memcached

memcached development tree

Repository: https://github.com/memcached/memcached
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/memcached
Homepage: https://memcached.org
Language: C
License: BSD-3-Clause
License Family: permissive
Last push: 2026-07-10T04:45:12+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 73/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 91, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 6340, "days_push": 54, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 14259, forks 3339 (observed 2026-08-28T04:11:06.641641+00:00)

## What it is
Memcached is a high-performance, multithreaded, distributed in-memory key-value cache store used to speed up dynamic web applications by alleviating database load. It stores small chunks of arbitrary data (strings, objects) from database calls, API calls, or page rendering, with client APIs available for most popular languages.

## Use cases
- cache database query results to reduce database load
- speed up dynamic web applications with an in-memory key-value store
- share a cache pool across a cluster of web servers
- store session data or rendered page fragments in memory
- cache API call responses for faster reads

## When to choose
- you need a simple, battle-tested distributed in-memory cache for small objects
- you want to offload read pressure from a relational database in a web app
- you need a cache with client libraries in nearly every language
- you want a lightweight cache server with optional TLS and a built-in proxy

## When to avoid
- you need persistence or durability - memcached is memory-only and loses data on restart
- you need rich data structures, replication, or pub/sub - consider Redis instead
- you need to cache large values or datasets that exceed available RAM
- you need strong consistency guarantees across cache nodes

## Facets
- artifact type: service
- maturity: stable
- function: caching, database, http-server
- domain: databases, web-development, backend, performance, microservices
- platform: bsd, cross-platform, self-hosted, c
- tags: key-value-store, in-memory-cache, distributed-cache, memcached, tls, proxy, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- memcached/memcached (main) score 73

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:11:06.641641+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T17:12:41.599865+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/memcached/memcached (fetched 2026-08-28T04:11:06.641641+00:00, sha 4dc804ff848d)
  - homepage: https://memcached.org (fetched 2026-08-29T08:06:19.004134+00:00, sha ec82d5573db9)
  - site_page: https://memcached.org/about (fetched 2026-08-29T08:06:19.022180+00:00, sha 978eb9be4b1b)
  - site_page: https://docs.memcached.org (fetched 2026-08-29T08:06:19.024804+00:00, sha 5e26abc5e515)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.