Another Redis Desktop Manager

Another Redis Desktop Manager (ARDM) is a free, open-source graphical client for Redis that lets Mac developers browse, query, and manipulate Redis data stores without touching a terminal.

What is Another Redis Desktop Manager?

Another Redis Desktop Manager is a cross-platform GUI application that gives you a visual window into any Redis instance — local, remote, or cloud-hosted. Where most Redis interaction happens through the CLI tool redis-cli, ARDM surfaces keys, values, TTLs, and server stats in a tree-based interface you can actually navigate. It connects over plain TCP, TLS, and SSH tunnels, and it handles everything from standalone Redis nodes to Sentinel and Cluster topologies.

The project was born out of frustration with the original Redis Desktop Manager going closed-source and paywalled. It has since grown into a genuinely capable tool with a busy GitHub community and steady releases.

What does Another Redis Desktop Manager do best?

ARDM earns its place in a developer's dock primarily through breadth and polish at a price that can't be argued with. The key browser is fast even on databases with millions of keys — it pages lazily and filters with glob patterns so you never wait for a full scan to complete.

• Multi-connection management: open connections to production, staging, and local Redis simultaneously in tabbed panes, colour-coded so you never accidentally flush the wrong server.
• All Redis data types: Strings, Hashes, Lists, Sets, Sorted Sets, and Streams all render in dedicated editors — Streams in particular are rare to see well-handled in free tools.
• SSH tunnel support: connect through a bastion host without setting up a separate tunnel in your shell. Credentials can be stored per-connection.
• Dark mode: fully system-aware, so it matches your macOS appearance preference without hacks.
• CLI console built in: a raw Redis command console sits alongside the visual browser, which I find invaluable when I need to run a quick OBJECT ENCODING or test a Lua script.

I've been using it alongside TablePlus (which covers PostgreSQL and MySQL) and I reach for ARDM the moment any Redis key needs inspecting. The value editor handles large payloads gracefully — it pretty-prints JSON automatically, which alone saves several seconds per lookup compared to copying a value out of the terminal.

Is Another Redis Desktop Manager free?

Yes — ARDM is completely free to download and use. It is open-source software released under the MIT licence, available directly on GitHub and installable via Homebrew Cask. There is no premium tier, no seat licence, and no feature locked behind a paywall. The only caveat is that it relies on volunteer maintainers, so enterprise SLA support does not exist.

Who should use Another Redis Desktop Manager?

Backend developers and DevOps engineers who work with Redis regularly are the core audience. If you're debugging cache invalidation logic, inspecting session data, or tuning TTLs across a Redis Cluster, having a visual client cuts investigation time dramatically versus scrolling through SCAN output in a terminal.

It is also well-suited to teams that want a single shared tool without a per-seat licence — open-source means every team member can install it without a procurement conversation. Front-end engineers who occasionally need to check what the API layer has cached will find the interface approachable even without deep Redis knowledge.

If you work exclusively in the terminal and never want a GUI, or if you need enterprise features like audit logging and role-based access, look elsewhere — RedisInsight (the official tool from Redis Ltd.) is free and adds those governance capabilities, though its Electron-era interface is heavier.

What are the best Another Redis Desktop Manager alternatives?

The field for Redis GUIs on Mac is small but meaningful. RedisInsight is the official free client from Redis Ltd. — more feature-rich in terms of memory profiling and slow-log analysis, but noticeably heavier to launch. Medis is a beautiful native Mac app with a lower footprint, though its free version caps some features and it hasn't kept pace with newer Redis data types. TablePlus added Redis support and is excellent if you already pay for it to manage relational databases; the bundled Redis browser isn't as deep as ARDM's, but the single-app experience is compelling. For teams already running observability tooling, Redis Commander runs in a browser tab via npm and needs zero installation on the Mac itself.

ARDM wins on the combination of zero cost, active maintenance, and feature depth — particularly Streams and Cluster support — that most free alternatives skip.

How does Another Redis Desktop Manager compare to RedisInsight?

RedisInsight is the more powerful tool for performance analysis — its memory profiler, slow-log viewer, and bulk-delete by pattern capabilities go beyond what ARDM offers. But ARDM launches in about a second where RedisInsight takes several, and ARDM's multi-connection tab workflow feels more like a native Mac app. For day-to-day key browsing and editing, I find ARDM faster to operate. Reach for RedisInsight when you need to diagnose a production performance problem; reach for ARDM when you need to check what's in a key right now.