How to integrate Redis with SQLAlchemy

Question

I'm learning to use SQLAlchemy connected to a SQL database for 12 standard relational tables (e.g. SQLite or PostgreSQL). But then I'd like to use Redis with Python for a couple of tables, particularly for Redis's fast set manipulation. I realise that Redis is NoSQL, but can I integrate this with SQLAlchemy for the benefit of the session and thread handling that SQLAlchemy has?

Is there a Redis SA dialect? I couldn't find it, which probably means that I'm missing some basic point. Is there a better architecture I should look at to use two different types of database?

Answer 1

While it is possible to set up an ORM that puts data in redis, it isn't a particularly good idea. ORMs are designed to expose standard SQL features. Many things that are standard in SQL such as querying on arbitrary columns are not available in redis unless you do a lot of extra work. At the same time redis has features such as set manipulation that do not exist in standard SQL so will not be used by the ORM.

Your best option is probably to write your code to interact directly with redis rather than trying to use an inappropriate abstraction - Generally you will find that the code to get data out of redis is quite a bit simpler than the SQL code that justifies using an ORM.