The problem/use-case that the feature addresses
I think it is quite safe to conclude by now that Redis Modules have not gotten all the success that they could have gained considering how flexible and powerful they are. In my opinion this is simply because none of the biggest redis hosted solutions (besides redis.com) supports loading modules. It seems as if one of the showstoppers is that the modules need to exist on the filesystem where Redis is running, however on a managed Redis instance you are normally not able to access the filesystem.
Description of the feature
If it was possible to load a module from a URL, then it may increase the chances for all hosted solutions to support loading modules, since now the module itself could be hosted anywhere and it can just be downloaded to a safe location on the redis server. Of course since this has some security implications ACL will be required by default to avoid malicious modules to be installed on the instances.
Alternatives you've considered
FUNCTIONS could potentially solve this issue, however it is seems like a longer path to achieve something that conceptually should be pretty simple to implement. Also modules has access to a lot of features such as timers, blocking calls, memory allocation, custom commands, etc, that probably Functions will not support in the near/medium term if ever.
Additional information
N/A
Comment From: oranagra
It's certainly not just the problem of letting you put files on the file system. by using CONFIG SET you're or enabling persistence you're also wiring to the file system. I think the bigger problem is letting you run your own native code on the host (increase the attack surface from security perspective). Besides that, If the admin console would have had a way for you to upload modules to the file system, that may be much safer, than allowing a Redis command coming from a client connection to load module from a URL.
So bottom line, I completely disagree that the reason modules are not available in some hosted services is because of a limitation in redis of not allowing them to be loaded from the network. If these services would have wanted to allow loading arbitrary modules, they would have added some admin console feature for it. but i think they have other reasons for now allowing it.
Comment From: manast
Of course it is pure speculation from my part, but assuming there are no other political/business motivations, not allowing you to access the file system could be one reason, it is like, by default, modules do not work if you do not have file access. Then you can argue that they can implement workarounds, but still that is extra cost that maybe is not motivated if the interest is not big enough.
Maybe somebody from AWS, GCP or Azure could give us some hints here :).
All in all, the biggest issue here is that if you are a module author, you are super limited in how you can monetize your module since it will be basically not available for most users.