Inlet vs Redis Insight

In short

Redis Insight is the free desktop GUI from Redis Ltd., the company behind Redis. It runs on macOS, Windows and Linux, and also comes as a Docker image you open in a browser, as a VS Code extension and inside the Redis Cloud console. It’s an Electron app, source-available under the SSPL, and at version 3.8.0 (July 2026). It goes deep on Redis: a key browser with a tree of namespaces, a Workbench for commands with visualisations, a profiler, the slow log, a memory analysis, Pub/Sub, streams and consumer groups, a Search workspace, cluster and Sentinel connections, and Redis Copilot, an AI assistant.

Inlet is a free native Mac app for Redis and Valkey beside PostgreSQL, MySQL and MariaDB, SQLite, MongoDB and SQL Server. It lists each database’s key namespaces in the sidebar and opens a namespace as a grid of keys; a namespace of hashes becomes a table with the hash fields as columns. Edits are checked and applied atomically, query tabs take redis-cli commands and show replies as tables, and production connections open read-only. It’s new (version 0.1), needs macOS 26 Tahoe or later, and doesn’t yet do cluster mode, ACL management or nested namespaces. For Redis alone, Redis Insight does more.

At a glance

As of October 2026, from redis.io, the Redis Insight documentation and its GitHub repository.

Where Redis Insight is stronger

• It’s Redis’s own tool. It keeps up with new data types: vector sets in 3.6 (June 2026) and the array type of Redis 8.8 in 3.8 (July 2026), with editors for each.
• Clusters and Sentinel. Redis Insight connects to Redis Open Source clusters and Sentinel setups, and discovers databases in Redis Cloud, Redis Software and Azure. Inlet connects to one node: on a cluster it explains a MOVED or ASK reply but doesn’t follow it (see MOVED in a Redis cluster).
• Memory and performance tools. Database analysis shows memory by data type, the top keys and namespaces, and when keys expire (it analyses up to 10,000 keys and extrapolates beyond that). The Slow Log reads SLOWLOG, and the Profiler shows every command the server receives. Inlet has no analysis or slow log view; MONITOR in a query tab is its nearest thing to the Profiler.
• A deeper browser. A tree view with your own delimiters, so namespaces nest; formatters for MessagePack, Hex and other encodings; bulk delete by pattern; full JSON editing; and stream consumer groups with pending messages you can acknowledge or claim. Inlet’s sidebar shows one level of namespaces and nothing nested yet.
• Search, time series and plugins. A Search workspace creates indexes and has a schema-aware query editor with Profile and Explain; Workbench draws time series and search results; you can write your own visualisation plugins.
• Redis Copilot. An AI assistant that answers Redis questions and turns plain language into search queries. It needs a Redis Cloud sign-in, is in beta, and may send index schemas and sample keys to its backend and OpenAI.
• Everywhere. Windows, Linux, a browser through Docker, and macOS versions before 26. Redis Insight has had releases since 2019; Inlet is at version 0.1.

Where Inlet is stronger

• Production connections that can’t write. Redis Insight’s production mode asks you to type to confirm a high-risk action. In Inlet, a connection tagged production refuses write and admin commands before they’re sent.
• Edits that don’t overwrite someone else’s. Change values, TTLs and key names in the grid, or add and delete keys: each change is checked and applied atomically, with a Lua script that first compares what you loaded, so a value someone changed meanwhile isn’t overwritten. Edits wait until you commit (⌘S), and Review shows what will run.
• A namespace as a table. Open user:* and, if its keys are hashes, the hash fields become columns, like a table. Filter by key (as a MATCH pattern), by type, or by any value; pages come from SCAN.
• Replies you can read. HGETALL shows field and value, ZRANGE … WITHSCORES member and score, and INFO and CLIENT LIST come back as tables. SCAN shows the next cursor. Stop also wakes a blocked BLPOP or kills a long script.
• SSH the way your Terminal does it. Inlet opens tunnels through the system ssh, so host aliases in ~/.ssh/config and the SSH agent work. Redis Insight’s tunnel takes a password or a private key.
• A native Mac app with six engines. Inlet is written in Swift with SwiftUI and AppKit, and has its own RESP2 and RESP3 driver. Your SQL databases sit in the same app as Redis, with the same Keychain passwords, environment tags and ⌘K command palette.

Moving from Redis Insight

Inlet doesn’t read Redis Insight’s database list or its export file, so add each database once:

1. In Redis Insight, open the database’s connection settings and note the host, port, user name and whether it uses TLS. If you added it from a connection URL, you can reuse that URL.

2. In Inlet, choose Connect from URL and paste the URL without the password:

   rediss://<user>@<host>:<port>
   

   Use rediss:// for TLS (Inlet verifies the certificate) and redis:// without it. If the database has a password but no ACL users, the user is default.

3. Connect. Inlet asks for the password and can save it in the Keychain.

4. Add a client certificate or an SSH tunnel in the connection form if the database needs one. For SSH, you can use a host alias from ~/.ssh/config.

5. Tag the connection local, development, staging or production. Production opens read-only.

Inlet’s sidebar lists every logical database on the server (db0, db1 and so on) with its namespaces. For a cluster, connect to the node that holds the keys you need; Redis Insight is the better tool for the cluster as a whole. For URL details, see Redis connection strings.

Which to choose

Choose Redis Insight if Redis is your main database, if you run a cluster or Sentinel, or if you want memory analysis, the slow log, the profiler, Redis Search tools, JSON editing or an AI assistant. It also runs on Windows, Linux and in a browser, and it’s free.

Choose Inlet if you’re on macOS 26 and Redis is one of several databases you look after: you get namespaces as tables, readable command replies, edits that can’t overwrite someone else’s change and production connections that refuse writes, in the same native app as your SQL databases. Both are free, so you can keep Redis Insight for analysis and use Inlet day to day.