What is Memcached? Free & open source, high-performance, distributed memory object caching system, generic in nature, but intended for use in speeding up dynamic web applications by alleviating database load. Memcached is an in-memory key-value store for small chunks of arbitrary data (strings, objects) from results of database calls, API calls, or page rendering. Memcached is simple yet powerful.
![memcached - a distributed memory object caching system](https://cdn-ak-scissors.b.st-hatena.com/image/square/f44ff63523ae0c9203d492d6411ff6bc00975f15/height=288;version=1;width=512/http%3A%2F%2Fmemcached.org%2Fimages%2Fmemcached_banner75.jpg)