All future versions of Redis will be released with source-available licenses starting with Redis 7.4. Redis will no longer be distributed under the three-clause Berkeley Software Distribution and will be instead dual-licensed under the Redis Source Available License and Server Side Public License. The new licenses enable Redis to sustainably provide permissive use of its source code, allowing it to continue to be freely available to developers, customers, and partners through Redis Community Edition as Redis moves on to its next phase of development as a real-time data platform with a unified set of clients, tools, and core product offerings.

The shift away from permissive open source licensing has motivated the majority of Redis users to consider alternatives. Many are considering or testing Valkey, a fork of Redis managed by the Linux Foundation and backed by AWS, Google, Oracle, and others that was prompted by the decision to switch licenses. Redis claims the decision to change licenses was made to prevent AWS and Google from charging for Redis in their database services without paying for it. It anticipated the fork, as it was exactly what Amazon did with Elasticsearch, but the company believes it is better for them to be able to innovate freely without the fear of its code being taken by cloud service providers and resold.