head to head · open source
valkey vs sh
valkey has 27,258 GitHub stars, 1,318 forks, 894 open issues and last shipped today. sh has 3,157 stars, 1,015 forks, 80 open issues and last shipped today. valkey leads on adoption by 763% (27,258 vs 3,157 stars). valkey is written in C under BSD-3-Clause; sh is written in Shell under Apache-2.0. valkey has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, sh 32%. sh 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
| valkey | sh | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 27K | ★ 3.2K |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | C | Shell |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.3K | ⑂ 1.0K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick valkey if
- You weight community size — 27K stars and counting
- You want the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick sh if
- You want the sh feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Shell
- You evaluated both and sh fits your workflow better
About valkey
Valkey is high performance data structure server. Serves key/value workloads first. Supports wide range of native structures plus extensible plugin system for new data structures and access patterns. Written in C, licensed BSD 3 Clause. Lives in key value store and NoSQL ecosystem, shares protocol lineage with Redis, and carries cache , database , key value store , redis , valkey client topics.
read the full valkey overview →
About sh
kejilion.sh is an all in one Linux management script — a root level Shell toolbox for VPS owners, self hosters and administrators that gathers system monitoring, Docker management, LDNMP site deployment, backups and site protection into one interactive tool.
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Frequently asked questions
Is valkey or sh more popular?
valkey has 27,258 GitHub stars and sh has 3,157. valkey has the larger community by that measure.
Are valkey and sh free?
Both are open source. valkey is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and sh under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between valkey and sh?
valkey is written in C and sh in Shell. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, valkey or sh?
Choose valkey if you want the larger community (27,258 stars) or its BSD-3-Clause licence terms. Choose sh if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.