To use Redis with Node.js, you need to install a Node.js Redis client. The following sections explain how to use node_redis, a community-recommended Redis client for Node.js.

Another community-recommended client for Node.js developers is ioredis. You can find additional Node.js clients for Redis in the Node.js section of the Redis Clients page.

Install node_redis

See the node_redis README file for installation instructions.

To install node_redis, run:

npm install redis

Connect to Redis

There are several ways that you can connect to Redis, each with different security considerations.

ACL

The following code creates a connection to Redis:

const redis = require('redis');
const client = redis.createClient({
    socket: {
        host: '<hostname>',
        port: '<port>'
    },
    username: '<username>',
    password: '<password>'
});

client.on('error', err => console.log('Redis Server Error', err));

Replace the values in the example with the values for your Redis instance:

  • <hostname> - The name of the host your database runs on
  • <port> - The port that the database is running on (default: 6379)
  • <username> - The username you use to access Redis, if necessary
  • <password> - The password you use to access Redis, if necessary
Note:
Remember to always store passwords outside of your code, for example in environment variables.

TLS

The following example demonstrates how to make a connection to Redis using TLS:

const redis = require('redis');
const fs = require('fs');

const client = redis.createClient({
    host: '<hostname>',
    port: '<port>',
    tls: {
        key: fs.readFileSync('path_to_keyfile'),
        cert: fs.readFileSync('path_to_certfile'),
        ca: [ fs.readFileSync('path_to_ca_certfile') ]
    }
});

Where you must provide:

  • <hostname> - The name of the host your database runs on
  • <port> - The port that the database is running on (default: 6379)

Example code for Redis commands

After your application connects to Redis, you can read and write data.

The following code snippet assigns the value bar to the Redis key foo, reads it back, and prints it:

console.log(await client.set('foo', 'bar')); // 'OK'
console.log(await client.get('foo')); // 'bar'

Example output:

$ node example_node_redis.js
'OK'
'bar'

The node_redis client exposes a function named for each Redis command, and returns Promise.