Rushikesh

When we chase high throughput, our instinct is to pile on more: more servers, more databases, vertical scaling, more threads. The conventional wisdom is simple more workers should equal more performance. But what if you stick to just one worker thread? You'd likely assume you need to go multithreaded to squeeze out maximum performance.

Yet Redis, one of the fastest in-memory databases in the world, runs on a single thread. How can a single thread outperform systems running dozens of threads across multiple cores?

The answer lies not in doing more things in parallel, but in removing everything that slows execution down.

The Single-Thread Advantage

Redis's single-threaded design eliminates the three biggest performance killers in multithreaded systems:

1. No Context Switching

Multithreaded system:
Thread A executes → OS interrupt → save state → load Thread B → execute
Cost: ~1-10 microseconds per context switch

Single-threaded Redis:
Continuous execution → no interruptions → no state saving/loading
Cost: 0 microseconds

2. No Locks or Synchronization

Multithreaded system:
acquire_lock() → process() → release_lock()
Cost: Lock contention, memory barriers, cache invalidation

Single-threaded Redis:
Direct memory access → immediate execution
Cost: 0 synchronization overhead

3. No Cache Contention

Multithreaded system:
Thread 1 modifies data → invalidates CPU cache → Thread 2 cache miss
Result: Memory fetch penalty (~100-300 cycles)

Single-threaded Redis:
Single thread → consistent cache state → optimal cache utilization
Result: Data stays hot in CPU cache

Redis (Single Thread)

Operations per second: ~100,000-500,000
Latency: 0.1-1 milliseconds
CPU utilization: 100% of one core (no waste)
Memory access pattern: Predictable, cache-friendly

Multithreaded Database (Shared Memory)

Operations per second: ~50,000-200,000
Latency: 1-5 milliseconds
CPU utilization: 60-80% across multiple cores (synchronization overhead)
Memory access pattern: Unpredictable, cache-unfriendly

The single thread wins because it eliminates all synchronization costs.

When Multithreading Can Win: Shared-Nothing Architecture

There is one scenario where multithreading can outperform Redis: shared-nothing architecture.

Shared-Nothing Design

Thread 1: Owns keys A-F, shard 1 of data
Thread 2: Owns keys G-M, shard 2 of data
Thread 3: Owns keys N-S, shard 3 of data
Thread 4: Owns keys T-Z, shard 4 of data

No shared memory → No locks → No contention

How It Works

Client request: GET user:john_doe

1. Hash "user:john_doe" → determines shard 2
2. Route request to Thread 2
3. Thread 2 processes entirely in isolation
4. Return response

No synchronization needed because Thread 2 owns that data exclusively

The Trade-offs

Single-Threaded (Redis) Advantages

Simplicity: No concurrency bugs, easier to reason about
Predictable performance: No lock contention variability
Cache efficiency: Data stays hot in CPU cache
Low latency: No synchronization delays

Single-Threaded Limitations

CPU bound: Can only use one CPU core
Blocking operations: Any slow operation blocks everything
Scalability ceiling: Limited by single core performance

Shared-Nothing Multithreading Advantages

Linear scaling: Performance grows with CPU cores
Fault isolation: One thread's problems don't affect others
Higher throughput: Can process more operations per second

Shared-Nothing Limitations

Complexity: Harder to implement and debug
Data distribution: Need smart sharding strategies
Cross-shard operations: Require coordination and are expensive

Lessons for System Design

The Redis story teaches us several crucial lessons:

1. Identify Your Bottleneck
1. Synchronization is Expensive
1. Architecture Matters More Than Core Count

Conclusion

Redis proves that sometimes less is more. By eliminating the overhead of multithreading context switching, locks, and cache contention a single thread can outperform systems with dozens of threads.

The key insights are:

Synchronization overhead often exceeds the benefits of parallelism
Event-driven architecture can handle massive concurrency with one thread
Shared-nothing designs can combine the benefits of both approaches
Cache efficiency matters more than raw CPU count
Simple architectures are often faster and more reliable

When designing high-performance systems, don't automatically reach for more threads. Instead, ask: "What's actually slowing us down?" Often, the answer isn't lack of parallelism it's the cost of coordination.

Redis shows us that the fastest way to do something might just be to remove everything that makes it slow.

References

Redis Architecture and Internals

Redis: Single Thread vs Multithreading