head to head · open source
node-redis vs kombu
node-redis has 17,584 GitHub stars, 1,979 forks, 159 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. kombu has 3,141 stars, 1,044 forks, 217 open issues and last shipped yesterday. node-redis leads on adoption by 460% (17,584 vs 3,141 stars). node-redis is written in TypeScript under MIT; kombu is written in Python under BSD-3-Clause. node-redis has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, kombu 33%. kombu was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (redis), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| node-redis | kombu | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 18K | ★ 3.1K |
| License | MIT | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.0K | ⑂ 1.0K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick node-redis if
- You weight community size — 18K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick kombu if
- You want the kombu feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and kombu fits your workflow better
About node-redis
Node Redis is the official Redis client for Node.js, published by the Redis organization on GitHub under the redis npm package name. It is a modern, high performance client written in TypeScript and released under the MIT license, and it lives in the Node.js ecosystem, where it serves as the standard way for JavaScript and TypeScript applications to talk to a Redis server. The project has accumulated 17,581 stars and 1,974 forks over roughly sixteen years, and it remains actively maintained, with the most recent push dated 14 September 2026.
read the full node-redis overview →
About kombu
Kombu is a BSD 3 Clause licensed Python messaging library that gives application authors an idiomatic, high level interface to the AMQP protocol and pluggable transports for Redis, Amazon SQS, MongoDB, PGMQ, ZooKeeper, SoftLayer MQ, and Pyro, aimed at Python developers and Celery based teams that need one consistent messaging API across several brokers.
read the full kombu overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is node-redis or kombu more popular?
node-redis has 17,584 GitHub stars and kombu has 3,141. node-redis has the larger community by that measure.
Are node-redis and kombu free?
Both are open source. node-redis is licensed under MIT and kombu under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between node-redis and kombu?
node-redis is written in TypeScript and kombu in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, node-redis or kombu?
Choose node-redis if you want the larger community (17,584 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose kombu if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.