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### What is Memcached?
**Free & open source, high-performance, distributed memory object caching system**, generic in nature, but intended for use in speeding up dynamic web applications by alleviating database load.
Memcached is an in-memory key-value store for small chunks of arbitrary data (strings, objects) from results of database calls, API calls, or page rendering.
**Memcached is simple yet powerful**. Its simple design promotes quick deployment, ease of development, and solves many problems facing large data caches. Its API is available for most popular languages.
### Supported by
[](https://www.netflix.com) [](https://metal.equinix.com/)
### Download Memcached
The latest stable memcached release is
v1.6.37
[release notes](https://github.com/memcached/memcached/wiki/ReleaseNotes1637) (2025-2-20)
[tar.gz](https://www.memcached.org/files/memcached-1.6.37.tar.gz)
[Source and Development](https://github.com/memcached/memcached/wiki/DevelopmentRepos)
Quick Example
-------------
### Cache Results
function get\_foo(foo\_id)
foo = memcached\_get("foo:" . foo\_id)
return foo if defined foo
foo = fetch\_foo\_from\_database(foo\_id)
memcached\_set("foo:" . foo\_id, foo)
return foo
end
### Play with telnet
$ telnet localhost 11211
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^\]'.
get foo
VALUE foo 0 2
hi
END
stats
STAT pid 8861
(etc)
Got a Question?
---------------
### Chat
If you are curious about something, feel free to ask on the support chats - [join the Discord Chat](https://discord.gg/AuD7kJTdvS)
### Documentation
Many common questions are answered at the [Documentation Site](https://docs.memcached.org).
### Email
Please feel free to bug us on the [memcached mailing list](http://groups.google.com/group/memcached).
Interested in business support, or sponsoring memcached's development? [Cache Forge](https://www.cacheforge.com)
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Please contact the mailing list with suggestions and comments.