Redis Server

A Redis (or compatible alternative) server must be running in order to enqueue jobs and start workers.

Alternative Servers

Redis changed to a “source available” license in March 2024. A few forks were created to continue with different licenses. Notably Valkey with a BSD-3-Clause license, and Redict with an LGPL-3.0-only license. From limited testing, RQ appears to work with either.

Running Locally

Install Redis locally and run redis-server. You can also run Valkey with valkey-server, or Redict with redict-server.

Docker

You can start a local server through Docker or Podman:

# Redis
$ docker run -d --rm -p 6379:6379 redis:latest

# Valkey
$ docker run -d --rm -p 6379:6379 valkey/valkey:latest

# Redict
$ docker run -d --rm -p 6379:6379 registry.redict.io/redict:latest

If you want data persisted across restarts, use a volume and tell the server to save its data.

$ docker run -d --rm -p 6379:6379 --volume redis:/data \
    redis:latest redis-server --appendonly yes