the weight of 36 million
March 24, 2026
the weight of 36 million
growth is never a straight line. it's a series of messy transitions, technical debt, and moments of realization that the tools that got you here won't take you where you need to go. at celia, our most recent transition was a move from redis to valkey. it wasn't just a technical upgrade; it was a shift in how we handle the scale of 250k daily users and 36 million hits every single day.
the messy beginnings
every developer has a "horror story" phase. ours was the early days of celia. our entire site ran on pure html, css, javascript, and php. we were building fast, but we were also building dangerously. i remember the constant anxiety of sql injections, the feeling that the whole thing was held together by digital duct tape.
our database was on mysql, and i remember visualizing everything on phpmyadmin. trust me, it sucked. looking at those rows and columns through that clunky interface felt like trying to navigate a forest with a magnifying glass. every manual query was a breath held, a prayer that i wouldn't accidentally drop a table. but those broken moments were our first teachers. they taught us that wanting to build something great isn't enough; you have to build it to last.
the hunger for speed
as celia grew, we reached a point where our mysql database couldn't keep up. the latency was a physical weight on our user experience. we needed speed. we needed a cache.
we chose redis. it felt like magic. suddenly, data that took seconds to retrieve was available in milliseconds. it was our first real step into the world of high performance architecture. we used it for everything, session management, rate limiting, frequently accessed data. redis became the heartbeat of celia.
but as we hit the 1 million download mark, even that heartbeat started to feel the strain. we weren't just looking for a cache anymore; we were looking for a foundation that could handle the weight of our dreams.
the search for a new home
we looked into several caching solutions, weighing the pros and cons like we were choosing a new home. we needed something that could handle our current load while being sustainable for the future. we looked at memcached, dragonfly, and others. some were fast but lacked the soul we needed. others were complex or had licensing structures that felt like they were pulling us away from the open source spirit that built celia.
then we found valkey.
valkey is the open source fork of redis that emerged after its license change. but to us, it's more than just a fork; it's a community driven effort to keep the fire of high performance caching alive and accessible. it offered the same sub millisecond latency we loved about redis, but with a renewed focus on performance and community led innovation.
why valkey powers our world
switching to valkey was one of those "it just works" moments. it handled our 250k daily users and 36 million hits with ease. it allowed us to scale our caching layer without the licensing baggage or the performance bottlenecks we were starting to see.
here is why valkey meant so much to us:
it respects the scale. when you're hitting a cache 36 million times a day, every microsecond is a victory. valkey is optimized for the kind of high throughput workloads we deal with every single day.
it keeps the promise of open source. after redis shifted its license, we wanted to ensure our core infrastructure remained truly open. valkey's governance under the linux foundation gives us the confidence that it will stay that way. it's built by the community, for the community.
it was a seamless evolution. because it's a fork, the migration was smooth. we didn't have to rewrite our entire backend; we just had to switch the engine. it was an upgrade in the truest sense of the word.
the philosophy of the switch
moving from the messy days of phpmyadmin to the streamlined performance of valkey is a testament to how far we've come. it's a reminder that as you grow, your tools must grow with you. you can't build a world class wallet with 100% bootstrapped grit alone; you need the right foundations.
at celia, we're not just building a product; we're building a system that can handle the future. valkey is a huge part of that. it's fast, it's open, and it's built for the kind of scale we're only just beginning to explore.
your invitation
stay curious. stay fast. and never be afraid to throw away the tools that no longer serve your vision. the tools of yesterday were the teachers that got you here, but they aren't the maps for where you're going.
the world is full of answers, but the best ones are found when you're brave enough to change your mind. valkey isn't just a cache for us; it's a symbol of our commitment to building better, faster, and more openly.
in a world of scale, your foundation is everything. in a world of answers, be someone who asks better questions. in a world of destinations, enjoy the journey of discovery.