Using NCache as your Distributed ASP.NET Core Caching Store

By Jonathan Crozier

NCache is an open-source, in-memory, distributed cache written in .NET and usable by several different languages and frameworks. A distributed cache pools together memory from one or more servers into a single data store that can be accessed from a consuming application that is typically hosted on another server. The cache can be used to speed up an application by allowing data that is accessed frequently to be stored and retrieved from memory, rather than performing expensive database or API lookups every time that data needs to be retrieved. .NET defines a generic interface for working with distributed caches and the developers of NCache, Alachisoft, provide a convenient implementation of this interface via a NuGet package to make working with NCache very straightforward.

In this article, I will walk you through what NCache is and discuss its features. I’ll then show you how to install NCache on your local machine and create a sample application that connects to the NCache server. The code will demonstrate how to store and retrieve data using the standard distributed cache interface within an ASP.NET Core web app.

A bit about NCache

NCache is a caching product developed by Alachisoft; a US-based company headquartered in Dallas, Texas. Alachisoft offers Professional, Enterprise, and Open Source editions of NCache to suit different needs.

NCache is written entirely in .NET / .NET Core and focuses very heavily on providing raw performance for demanding applications that need to handle a lot of data requests. With the help of its Client Cache feature, NCache gains a performance boost that can make it even faster than Redis.