Replication with Memgraph Community
Replication allows you to copy data from one Memgraph instance (MAIN) to one or more REPLICA instances. This improves read scalability, provides extra copies of your data and can reduce the impact of individual node failures.
In a replication setup:
- The MAIN instance accepts reads and writes.
- REPLICA instances accept reads only and continuously replicate data from the MAIN.
Replication is a good fit if you:
- Want to scale read workloads horizontally.
- Need additional copies of your data for resilience.
- Are comfortable managing manual failover and cluster orchestration yourself.
This guide is for Memgraph Community users who want to set up data replication across multiple instances. If you have a Memgraph Enterprise license, we strongly recommend using the high availability features instead.
High availability (HA) builds on replication and adds:
- Automatic failover (no manual promotion of replicas),
- Coordinator instances based on the Raft consensus protocol,
- Built-in routing and better protection against data loss,
- A more robust platform for true 24/7 uptime.
Before you start, we recommend reading replication under the hood section to understand the underlying concepts: roles (MAIN / REPLICA), replication modes (SYNC, ASYNC, STRICT_SYNC), durability (snapshots, WAL, deltas), and replica recovery behavior.
What you’ll find in this section
This Replication section focuses on the practical side of setting up and operating a replication cluster. Use it as your entry point to:
- Choose a deployment method (Docker or Kubernetes),
- Apply best practices for reliability and performance,
- Use the available commands to manage and inspect the cluster.
How replication works
Learn how Memgraph replication works under the hood, including:
- CAP theorem trade-offs
- Roles of MAIN and REPLICA
- How data is replicated using deltas, WALs, and snapshots
- Replica states and recovery
- Replication modes (ASYNC, SYNC, STRICT_SYNC) and their guarantees
- How replicas catch up after interruptions
- Multi-tenant replication (Enterprise)
- Key internals such as timestamps, epoch IDs, and durability handling
A deeper look at how Memgraph maintains consistency, performance, and resilience across replicated instances.
Set up replication cluster using Docker
Create a local replication cluster using Docker.
This guide walks through running one MAIN and two REPLICA instances, configuring
SYNC/ASYNC modes, and verifying that data is replicated correctly.
This is the recommended starting point if you are experimenting locally or running simple container-based deployments.
Set up replication cluster on K8s
Deploy a replication cluster on Kubernetes using your own manifests or the
standalone Helm chart.
Memgraph currently does not provide official Helm charts for the Community
edition, so this guide focuses on using raw Kubernetes manifests and concepts.
Replication best practices
Guidelines for choosing replication modes, configuring storage, sizing hardware, setting flags, managing manual failover, and running replication safely in Memgraph Community.
Replication commands reference guide
A complete list of all Community Edition replication commands, including role changes, replica registration, monitoring, and cluster maintenance operations.