Install Memcached on macOS

High-performance, distributed in-memory cache for key-value data.

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Installation

Memcached (Homebrew) · Homebrew

$ brew install memcached

Installs the memcached server.

Verify the installation

Verify

$ memcached -V

Service

Start

$ brew services start memcached

Stop

$ brew services stop memcached

Status

$ brew services info memcached

Restart

$ brew services restart memcached

Default ports

11211

Command-line tools

memcachedThe cache server; options like -m (memory) and -l (listen address) are passed as flags.

Uninstall

brew services stop memcached
brew uninstall memcached

Good to know

Homebrew's Memcached binds to 127.0.0.1:11211 by default; never expose it on a public interface (it has no authentication).
Tune the cache size with the -m flag (megabytes); edit the brew service plist or run memcached manually for custom flags.
Test connectivity with: printf 'stats\r\nquit\r\n' | nc localhost 11211.

Installation with Homebrew

brew install memcached installs the server. Start it as a background service with brew services start memcached, which listens on 127.0.0.1:11211. Verify the binary with memcached -V.

Configuration

Homebrew runs Memcached with default flags. To change the memory limit or listen address, run it manually — for example memcached -m 256 -l 127.0.0.1 — or edit the service plist. Memcached has no configuration file; everything is set via command-line flags.

Security

Memcached has no authentication and must never be reachable from untrusted networks (it has historically been abused for UDP amplification attacks). Keep it bound to 127.0.0.1, and disable UDP with -U 0 if you only need TCP.