Feature Comparison: Valkey & Redis vs. VMWare Tanzu Gemfire

Published on
May 9, 2025

Developers who want to maximize the speed of their enterprise-grade, distributed applications often turn to in-memory data stores or distributed caches to reduce latency and increase throughput. Two of the more prominent players in this space are Redisson (with either Valkey or Redis on the backend) and VMware Tanzu Gemfire. 

Valkey and Redis are well-known for extremely fast performance, and Redisson allows Java developers to build their apps around them, with key features like the distributed Reliable Cache. Meanwhile, VMware has positioned Tanzu Gemfire as an enterprise-class, high-availability data grid. Which one is right for you? This comparison covers all the critical features to help you decide.

Collections

One of the advantages of Redisson with Valkey or Redis for Java developers is familiarity. Redissonvides a comprehensive suite of distributed Java objects that mirror the standard Java Collection Framework. Therefore, developers can work with distributed data using the same intuitive APIs they are already familiar with. In comparison, Tanzu Gemfire only offers a Map object:

Valkey or Redis + Redisson VMware Tanzu Gemfire

Map

Multimap

JSON Store

Set

List

SortedSet

ScoredSortedSet

TimeSeries

Queues

Distributed queues and messaging patterns are the fundamental building blocks upon which developers build modern, service-oriented applications. Redisson leverages the Pub/Sub and List capabilities of Valke and Redis for a powerful set of distributed queue and messaging objects. This includes Reliable Queue, which guarantees message delivery even in the face of client or server failures. Tanzu Gemfire offers no equivalent features.

Valkey or Redis + Redisson VMware Tanzu Gemfire

Reliable Queue

Queue

Deque

PriorityQueue

PriorityDeque

TransferQueue

RingBuffer

Stream

Objects

Redissonvides an array of distributed objects and specialized data types to help make complex distributed programming patterns accessible through simple Java interfaces. Tanzu Gemfire mainly focuses on managing serialized Java objects. While it supports storing various object types and has eventing capabilities, it can’t match the breadth of purpose-built objects that Redisson offers.

Valkey or Redis + Redisson VMware Tanzu Gemfire

Object holder

JSON holder

Publish/Subscribe

Reliable Publish/Subscribe

Geospatial

BitSet

BloomFilter

BinaryStream

HyperLogLog

RateLimiter

Counters

In distributed applications, atomically managing numerical values is a common task. Java developers regularly generate unique identifiers, track events, or maintain shared counters across multiple instances. Redisson features a number of specialized counters that simplify these programming tasks. With Tanzu Gemfire, developers must implement the logic for atomic operations themselves, which can be complex, and they still might not achieve the same level of optimization provided by Redisson.

Valkey or Redis + Redisson VMware Tanzu Gemfire

Id Generator

AtomicLong

AtomicDouble

LongAdder

DoubleAdder

Locks and Synchronizers

Redisson builds on the strong consistency guarantees provided by Valkey/Redis to deliver a suite of distributed lock and synchronizer objects. These implementations operate across your distributed clusters to ensure reliable coordination between nodes. Tanzu Gemfire provides transaction support, which can handle some concurrency matters. However, implementing functionality similar to Redisson would require developers to write custom coordination logic on top of Gemfire’s transaction or event frameworks.

Valkey or Redis + Redisson VMware Tanzu Gemfire

Lock

Semaphore

CountDownLatch

FairLock

Fenced Lock

Spin Lock

MultiLock

ReadWriteLock

Advanced Cache Support

Both Redisson with Valkey/Redis and Tanzu Gemfire provide a range of advanced caching features designed to improve performance and simplify data synchronization. However, only Redisson implements the JCache API with near cache functionality. This means developers can leverage the standard JCache API while benefiting from the performance boost of the near (local) cache.

Valkey or Redis + Redisson VMware Tanzu Gemfire

JCache API

JCache API with near cache

Near Cache

Read-through strategy support

Write-through strategy support

Write-behind strategy support

Cache API implementations

Valkey or Redis + Redisson VMware Tanzu Gemfire

Spring Cache

Spring Cache with near cache

Hibernate Cache

Hibernate Cache with near cache

MyBatis Cache

MyBatis Cache with near cache

Quarkus Cache

Quarkus Cache with near cache

Micronaut Cache

Micronaut Cache with near cache

API architecture

Valkey or Redis + Redisson VMware Tanzu Gemfire

Asynchronous interface

Reactive stream interface

RxJava3 interface

Distributed services

Valkey or Redis + Redisson VMware Tanzu Gemfire

ExecutorService

MapReduce

SchedulerService

RemoteService

LiveObjectService

Session Management

Valkey or Redis + Redisson VMware Tanzu Gemfire

Tomcat Session Manager

Spring Session

Micronaut Session

Security

Valkey or Redis + Redisson VMware Tanzu Gemfire

Authentication

SSL support

Data Serialization

A common trait amongst all high-performance distributed systems is data serialization. This involves converting complex application objects into a byte stream for storage and transmission across the network, and then deserializing them back into objects. 

The choice of serialization mechanism directly impacts application performance, network bandwidth, and more. Redisson utilizes the binary data capabilities of Valkey/Redis to offer an array of serialization options and codecs. Tanzu Gemfire has its own serialization mechanism, but doesn’t natively integrate with many of the industry-leading options supported by Redisson.

Valkey or Redis + Redisson VMware Tanzu Gemfire

JSON codec

JDK Serialization

Avro codec

Apache Fury codec

Smile codec

CBOR codec

MsgPack codec

Kryo codec

Protobuf codec

LZ4 compression codec

ZStandard compression codec

Snappy compression codec

Stability and ease of use

Valkey or Redis + Redisson VMware Tanzu Gemfire

Fully-managed services support (AWS Elasticache, Azure Cache...)

Large memory amount handling

Redisson With Valkey/Redis: The Comprehensive Solution

For developers who require high-performance distributed caching and enterprise-grade data management, Redisson (backed by Valkey/Redis) and VMware Tanzu Gemfire can both provide a speed boost. 

But as this feature comparison shows, Redisson offers a broader and more deeply integrated set of distributed objects and caching features specifically tailored for Java developers. From its comprehensive suite of distributed collections to its specialized atomic objects, Redisson is clearly the comprehensive solution. To learn more, visit the Redisson website today.