Redis 8 has reached general availability with a switch to the AGPLv3 license. A year after leaving open source for a challenge and the birth of Valkey, it rehired its creator and returned to open source. Initially under BSD, it switched to SSPLv1 in 2024, sparking the Valkey fork. Redis 8.0 now offers performance improvements like 87% faster commands, 2× higher throughput, and 18% faster replication. It also introduces beta Vector Sets. Salvatore Sanfilippo (antirez) rejoined and explained his decision. A year ago, the restrictive license led to forks like Valkey, which is outperforming Redis 8.0 in benchmarks. Khawaja Shams welcomes Sanfilippo's return. Many predict developers using Valkey won't switch back but acknowledge tougher competition. Peter Zaitsev highlights the inclusion of RedisJSON. The article confirms the open source project integrates Redis Stack technologies. The licensing change has sparked discussions on Reddit with mixed views, some calling it a sign of a bad decision. Redis is not the first to switch back from SSPLv1 to AGPL after a fork and loss of support, as Elasticsearch and Kibana also did a year ago.