Cache Configuration

Enable a managed Redis cache on your Umbraco Cloud project. Compare the available SKUs and tune the cache via the CMS Hybrid Cache reference.

You can enable a managed Redis cache on your Umbraco Cloud project. The cache improves performance on a single-instance project and backs Load Balancing on load-balanced environments.

You enable and configure the managed Redis cache in the Umbraco Cloud Portal under Project -> Configuration -> Cache Configuration.

When to enable Cache

Enable Cache when you need:

• A distributed cache shared by all instances of your environment.
• A SignalR backplane to coordinate backoffice messages across instances.
• Lower database load on read-heavy sites.

You do not need to enable Cache before turning on Load Balancing. If Cache is not already enabled on the environment, Umbraco Cloud provisions a managed Redis cache as part of enabling Load Balancing.

How the managed Redis cache is used

When you enable Cache, Umbraco Cloud provisions a managed Redis instance for your environment. Redis serves two roles:

• Distributed cache — keeps cached state consistent across instances so every visitor sees the same content.
• SignalR backplane — coordinates real-time backoffice messages across all running instances.

Umbraco CMS uses Microsoft's HybridCache for in-memory and distributed caching. See the HybridCacheOptions reference for more details and for how to tune the cache.

What Umbraco Cloud configures automatically

When you enable Cache, Umbraco Cloud wires Redis into your application for you. You do not need to change Program.cs or add any configuration code. The platform configures:

• Distributed cache — Redis is registered as the application's IDistributedCache. Umbraco's HybridCache uses Redis as its second-level (L2) cache automatically. Cached content and media are shared across all instances.
• Session state — ASP.NET Core session state uses the same registered distributed cache, so sessions are shared across instances.

On load-balanced environments, Umbraco Cloud also configures a SignalR backplane and shared Data Protection keys. See What Umbraco Cloud configures automatically in the Load Balancing article.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite	What it is	Learn more
Payment plan	Cache is only available on projects with an Invoiced or Credits payment plan.	Payments

Available Redis SKUs

Redis SKU selector on the environment settings page

Umbraco Cloud offers six Redis SKUs. The entry-level Extra Small tier runs without High Availability (HA) and is not covered by a Service Level Agreement (SLA). All other tiers include HA and an SLA on the Redis instance.

Display Name	High Availability	Cache Size	Description
Extra Small	❌	0.5 GB	Entry-level cache, no SLA
Extra Small+	✅	0.5 GB	Entry-level cache with SLA
Small+	✅	1 GB	Small cache with SLA
Medium+	✅	3 GB	Medium cache with SLA
Large+	✅	6 GB	Large cache with SLA
Extra Large+	✅	12 GB	Extra-large cache with SLA

The default SKU for your environment is selected automatically based on your Cloud plan. See Cache Configuration by Cloud Plan for the default mapping.

Choose the right SKU

Pick a SKU that fits your working set — the active content, sessions, and backoffice state your environment caches at peak. Choose a larger SKU when:

• Your site has a large catalogue of content or media metadata.
• You serve many concurrent backoffice editors.
• You see frequent cache evictions on the current SKU.

For pricing of each SKU, see the Umbraco pricing page.

Using Redis in your own code

You can use the same Redis instance for your own caching and cross-instance coordination. Umbraco Cloud registers a shared connection in the dependency injection container. Inject IConnectionMultiplexer into your services to work with Redis directly:

using StackExchange.Redis;

namespace MyProject.Services;

public class ProductCacheService
{
    private readonly IConnectionMultiplexer _redis;

    public ProductCacheService(IConnectionMultiplexer redis) => _redis = redis;

    public async Task CacheProductNameAsync(string sku, string name)
    {
        IDatabase database = _redis.GetDatabase();
        await database.StringSetAsync($"product:{sku}", name);
    }
}

If you need the connection string directly, read it from the environment variable UMBRACO:CLOUD:REDIS:CONNECTIONSTRING. The Umbraco.Cloud.Cms package exposes the same key as a constant:

using Umbraco.Cloud.Cms;

string? redisConnectionString = builder.Configuration
    .GetValue<string>(Constants.EnvironmentVariables.CloudRedisConnectionString);

Both the registered IConnectionMultiplexer and the connection string are only available when Cache is enabled on the environment. On an environment without Cache, IConnectionMultiplexer is not registered. A service that takes it as a required dependency fails to resolve. Guard for that case if the same code runs on environments where Cache may be disabled.

Related articles

• Load Balancing — uses the managed Redis cache as a backplane and distributed cache across instances.
• HybridCacheOptions — CMS reference for the Hybrid Cache implementation.