Salvatore Sanfilippo

Salvatore Sanfilippo
Sanfilippo at dotScale 2015
Born
Salvatore Sanfilippo

(1977-03-07) March 7, 1977 [1]
Campobello di Licata, Sicily, Italy[1]
Other namesantirez
OccupationsComputer programmer, author[1]
Known forCreator of Redis, hping, Idle scan[2]
Websiteinvece.org

Salvatore Sanfilippo (born 7 March 1977 in Sicily, Italy),[1] known online as "antirez", is an Italian computer programmer, hacker and author.[1] He is best known as the creator of the Redis in-memory database, which he developed and led for over a decade.[2][3]

Sanfilippo is also the author of several other open-source projects, including the network security tools hping and the Idle scan discovery method.[2] In addition to his work in software, he has also published a science fiction novel.[4][5] He has an active YouTube channel in English and Italian.[6]

Early life

Sanfilippo was born in Campobello di Licata, Sicily, on March 7, 1977.[1] He grew up in a marginalized area of southern Sicily, near Gela, and moved to Palermo at the age of 17 to study architecture, though he did not complete his university studies, later shifting his focus to computer science. [7] [8]

Career

Computer Security

While working in computer security, Sanfilippo developed and released several influential tools under the alias "antirez".

  • hping: An open-source packet generator and analyzer for the TCP/IP protocol. It is used for security auditing and testing of firewalls and networks.[2]
  • Idle scan: A TCP port scan method that allows for "blind" port scanning, where the attacker's true IP address is not revealed to the target. Sanfilippo first published the technique in 1998,[9] and it was later implemented in security scanners like Nmap.[2]

Redis

Sanfilippo began development on Redis in 2009.[10] The project's creation was motivated by his attempt to improve the scalability of his Italian startup, LLOOGG, a real-time web log analyzer.[10] After encountering issues with traditional database systems, he began prototyping an in-memory database that would become Redis.[8]

He open-sourced the project and served as its primary developer and Benevolent Dictator for Life (BDFL) for 11 years.[3][11] During this time, the project's development was sponsored by VMware (2010–2013), Pivotal Software (2013–2015),[10] and later Redis (formerly Redis Labs) (2015–2020).[3] Redis grew to become one of the most popular databases in the world, widely used for caching, message brokering, and as a primary database.[3]

On June 30, 2020, Sanfilippo announced he was stepping down as the maintainer of the Redis project,[12] citing a desire to pursue other projects and a dislike for the maintenance-focused phase of the project's life.[13] He passed leadership to Yossi Gottlieb and Oran Agra.[3]

In December 2024, Sanfilippo announced he was returning to Redis (the company) in the role of a "Redis evangelist".[14][15] Following his return, he developed and implemented a new data structure for the database, the Vector Set, designed for vector similarity search.[16][17]

Other Notable Projects

Sanfilippo is a prolific open-source developer. Some of his other well-known projects include:

  • Kilo: A small text editor written in less than 1000 lines of ANSI C code, which serves as a popular educational resource for learning C.[18]
  • Dump1090: A popular command-line ADS-B Mode S decoder for RTL-SDR software-defined radio devices.[19]
  • Linenoise: A minimal, self-contained alternative to the GNU Readline library.[20]
  • Disque: A distributed, in-memory message broker.[21]
  • Jim Tcl: An open-source small-footprint implementation of the Tcl programming language, used in many embedded environments.[22]

Writing and Media

Sanfilippo is also a fiction author. His first science fiction novel, Wohpe, was published in Italy in 2022. An official English translation exists.[4][5][1]

Since 2024, he has maintained an active YouTube channel, where he publishes videos in Italian and English about programming, technology, retrocomputing, finance, and his projects.[6] This includes a complete course on programming in the C language.[23]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g "Salvatore Sanfilippo aka antirez". invece.org. Retrieved 2 November 2025.
  2. ^ a b c d e "Salvatore Sanfilippo - O'Reilly". O'Reilly Media. Retrieved 2 November 2025.
  3. ^ a b c d e "Thank You, Salvatore Sanfilippo". Redis. 30 June 2020. Retrieved 2 November 2025.
  4. ^ a b "Wohpe - Salvatore Sanfilippo". Laurana Editore. Retrieved 10 November 2025.
  5. ^ a b "Wohpe by Salvatore Sanfilippo". Goodreads. Retrieved 2 November 2025.
  6. ^ a b "Salvatore Sanfilippo - YouTube". YouTube. Retrieved 2 November 2025.
  7. ^ "Interview with Salvatore Sanfilippo". YouTube. Retrieved 8 February 2026.
  8. ^ a b "Salvatore Sanfilippo, the author of Redis: from Sicily with talent and passion". francofolini.com. 22 December 2014. Retrieved 2 November 2025.
  9. ^ Sanfilippo, Salvatore (18 December 1998). "new tcp scan method (announcement of idle scan)". Bugtraq mailing list. Retrieved 2 November 2025.
  10. ^ a b c "Documentation: History". Valkey.io. Retrieved 2 November 2025.
  11. ^ "Redis database creator Sanfilippo: Why I'm stepping down from the open-source project". ZDNET. 2 July 2020. Retrieved 3 November 2025.
  12. ^ Sanfilippo, Salvatore (30 June 2020). "The end of the Redis adventure". antirez.com (personal blog). Retrieved 2 November 2025.
  13. ^ "Redis Founder Steps Back". I Programmer. 8 July 2020. Retrieved 2 November 2025.
  14. ^ "Redis Creator 'antirez' Returns: Can He Shift Momentum away from Valkey?". InfoQ. 21 December 2024. Retrieved 2 November 2025.
  15. ^ Sanfilippo, Salvatore (2 December 2024). "Redis, I'm back". antirez.com (personal blog). Retrieved 2 November 2025.
  16. ^ Clark, Lindsay (10 April 2025). "Return of Redis creator bears fruit with vector set data type". The Register. Retrieved 3 November 2025.
  17. ^ Sanfilippo, Salvatore (14 April 2025). "Vector Sets are part of Redis". antirez.com (personal blog). Retrieved 2 November 2025.
  18. ^ "antirez/kilo: A text editor in less than 1000 LOC". GitHub. Retrieved 2 November 2025.
  19. ^ "antirez/dump1090: Dump1090 is a simple Mode S decoder for RTLSDR devices". GitHub. Retrieved 2 November 2025.
  20. ^ "antirez/linenoise: A small self-contained alternative to readline and libedit". GitHub. Retrieved 2 November 2025.
  21. ^ "antirez/disque: Disque is a distributed message broker". GitHub. Retrieved 2 November 2025.
  22. ^ "Pivotal People—Salvatore Sanfilippo, Inventor of Redis". Tanzu - VMware Blogs. 17 July 2013. Retrieved 2 November 2025.
  23. ^ "C programming language course". YouTube. Retrieved 2 November 2025.
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