head to head · open source
valkey vs sh
valkey has 27,603 GitHub stars, 1,521 forks, 894 open issues and last shipped yesterday. sh has 3,518 stars, 1,056 forks, 80 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. valkey leads on adoption by 685% (27,603 vs 3,518 stars). valkey is written in C under BSD-3-Clause; sh is written in Shell under Apache-2.0. valkey has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, sh 30%. valkey 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 | ★ 28K | ★ 3.5K |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | C | Shell |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.5K | ⑂ 1.1K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick valkey if
- You weight community size — 28K 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
This project was forked from the open source Redis project right before the transition to their new source available licenses. This README is just a fast quick start document. More details can be found under valkey.io What is Valkey? Valkey is a high performance data structure server that primarily serves key/value workloads. It supports a wide range of native structures and an extensible plugin system for adding new data structures and access patterns. Building Valkey using Makefile Valkey can be compiled and used on Linux, macOS, OpenBSD, NetBSD, FreeBSD. We support big endian and little endian architectures…
read the full valkey overview →
About sh
KEJILION.SH · 科技lion一键脚本工具 面向 Linux 服务器的综合脚本工具箱，集成系统管理、网络测试、Docker、LDNMP 建站、 应用市场、备份迁移与安全防护。 介绍 · 一键安装 · 支持系统 · 效果图预览 · 核心功能 · KPanel · 开源许可 介绍 科技Lion 的 Shell 脚本工具是一款全能脚本工具箱，专为 Linux 监控、测试和管理而设计。 无论您是初学者还是经验丰富的用户，该工具都能提供便捷的解决方案。脚本集成 Docker 管理、LDNMP 建站、网站优化与防御、备份还原迁移，以及各类系统工具和应用的安装管理， 让服务器维护更加简单。 KejiLion's Shell script is an all in one toolbox designed for Linux monitoring, testing, and server management. It brings together Docker management, LDNMP website deployment, optimization, protection, backup, restoration, migration, and common server applications in one interactive tool. 一键安装 使用 root 用户执行以下命令。 中文版 bash…
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Frequently asked questions
Is valkey or sh more popular?
valkey has 27,603 GitHub stars and sh has 3,518. 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 (27,603 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.