Redis has evolved well beyond a simple key-value cache. Redis Stack adds full-text search (RediSearch), JSON document storage, graph queries, time series data, and probabilistic data structures to the core engine. The book landscape is thin (only two titles worth recommending), but the two that exist complement each other well: one teaches modern Redis Stack capabilities, the other teaches the foundational data structures and patterns that every Redis user needs to understand.
For installation walkthroughs, see our guides on installing Redis on Ubuntu/Debian and Redis on Rocky Linux/AlmaLinux.
Last reviewed: March 2026. Both titles verified available.
Redis Stack for Application Modernization
Luigi Fugaro and Mirko Ortensi’s 2023 Packt title is the most current Redis book available. It covers Redis Stack’s multi-model capabilities: using Redis as a JSON document store, a search engine (RediSearch), a time series database, and a probabilistic data store (Bloom filters, Count-Min Sketch). Each chapter includes working code examples for real-time leaderboards, session management, event streaming, and search-driven applications. The focus is on using Redis as a primary data platform rather than just a caching layer in front of PostgreSQL.
If you are building new applications that use Redis, start here. It covers the Redis that exists today, not the Redis of 2013.
- Authors: Luigi Fugaro, Mirko Ortensi
- Published: 2023 (Packt)
- Best for: Modern Redis Stack, building applications beyond simple caching
- Amazon: Buy on Amazon
Redis in Action
Josiah Carlson’s 2013 Manning title remains the best resource for understanding Redis data structures and core patterns. Strings, hashes, lists, sets, sorted sets, pub/sub, Lua scripting, and persistence (RDB and AOF) are covered with depth that no newer book matches. The application examples (social network features, web analytics, job queues) teach you how to think in Redis, which is a genuinely different mental model from SQL databases.
Some API details have changed since 2013, but the data modeling strategies and architectural patterns are timeless. Read this first if you are new to Redis, then move to the Redis Stack book for modern capabilities.
- Author: Josiah L. Carlson
- Published: 2013 (Manning)
- Best for: Understanding Redis fundamentals, data structures, and core patterns
- Amazon: Buy on Amazon
Why only two books?
The Redis book market is thin because Redis’s official documentation is genuinely excellent, and the community has historically shared knowledge through blog posts and conference talks rather than books. These two titles fill the gaps that documentation alone cannot: Carlson teaches you to think in Redis data structures, and Fugaro/Ortensi show you what modern Redis Stack can actually do as a primary data platform.
