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),[1] known online as "antirez", is an Italian computer programmer 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 and Career

Sanfilippo was born in Campobello di Licata, Sicily, on March 7, 1977.[1] He developed an early interest in programming and became active in the computer security field in the late 1990s.[7]

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,[8] and it was later implemented in security scanners like Nmap.[2]

Redis

Sanfilippo began development on Redis in 2009.[9] The project's creation was motivated by his attempt to improve the scalability of his Italian startup, LLOOGG, a real-time web log analyzer.[9] After encountering issues with traditional database systems, he began prototyping an in-memory database that would become Redis.[7]

He open-sourced the project and served as its primary developer and Benevolent Dictator for Life (BDFL) for 11 years.[3][10] During this time, the project's development was sponsored by VMware (2010–2013), Pivotal Software (2013–2015),[9] 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,[11] citing a desire to pursue other projects and a dislike for the maintenance-focused phase of the project's life.[12] 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".[13][14] Following his return, he developed and implemented a new data structure for the database, the Vector Set, designed for vector similarity search.[15][16]

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.[17]
  • Dump1090: A popular command-line ADS-B Mode S decoder for RTL-SDR software-defined radio devices.[18]
  • Linenoise: A minimal, self-contained alternative to the GNU Readline library.[19]
  • Disque: A distributed, in-memory message broker.[20]
  • Jim Tcl: An open-source small-footprint implementation of the Tcl programming language, used in many embedded environments.[21]

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.[22]

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