Redis 8.0 release notes and breaking changes

Release notes and breaking changes for Redis 8.0 on Redis Cloud.

Redis 8.0 introduces powerful new capabilities, including the beta release of the Vector Set data structure, designed for AI use cases such as semantic search and recommendation systems. Redis 8 also merges Redis Stack and Redis Community Edition into a single unified distribution: Redis Open Source. For more information on the changes in Redis 8.0, see What's new in Redis 8.0.

Breaking changes

When new versions of Redis Open Source change existing commands, upgrading your database to a new version can potentially break some functionality. Before you upgrade, read the provided list of breaking changes that affect Redis Cloud and update any applications that connect to your database to handle these changes.

Make sure to review all breaking changes between your current version of Redis and the version you are upgrading to.

Potentially breaking changes to ACLs

Redis 8 includes Redis Query Engine, as well as JSON, time series, Bloom filter, cuckoo filter, top-k, count-min sketch, and t-digest data types. The integration of these features into Redis also comes with improvements to Redis ACL rules.

Extension to the existing ACL categories

Before Redis 8, the existing ACL categories @read, @write, @dangerous, @admin, @slow, and @fast did not include commands for the Redis Query Engine and the JSON, time series, and probabilistic data structures.

Starting with Redis 8, Redis includes all Query Engine, JSON, time series, Bloom filter, cuckoo filter, top-k, count-min sketch, and t-digest commands in these existing ACL categories.

As a result:

• Existing ACL rules such as +@read +@write will allow access to more commands than in previous versions of Redis. Here are some examples:

  • A user with +@read access will be able to execute FT.SEARCH.
  • A user with +@write access will be able to execute JSON.SET.

• ACL rules such as +@all -@write will allow access to fewer commands than previous versions of Redis. For example:

  • A user with +@all -@write will not be able to execute JSON.SET.

Note that the @all category did not change, as it always included all the commands.

Additionally, ACL rules such as +@read +JSON.GET can now be simplified as +@read because JSON.GET is included in the @read category.

Who is affected by this change?

Users who currently use the Redis Query Engine and/or the JSON, time series, or probabilistic data structures, and use custom ACL rules.

You should reanalyze your ACL rules to make sure they are aligned with your security and access control requirements.

Redis Query Engine

The following changes affect behavior and validation in the Redis Query Engine:

• Enforces validation for LIMIT arguments (offset must be 0 if limit is 0).
• Enforces parsing rules for FT.CURSOR READ and FT.ALIASADD.
• Parentheses are now required for exponentiation precedence in APPLY expressions.
• Invalid input now returns errors instead of empty results.
• Default values revisited for reducers like AVG, COUNT, SUM, STDDEV, QUANTILE, and others.
• Updates to scoring (BM25 is now the default instead of TF-IDF).
• Improved handling of expired records, memory constraints, and malformed fields.

For a full list of the Redis Query Engine-related changes, see the release notes.