Redis is an in-memory data store that can function as a database, cache, or message broker, and go-redis/redis is a type-safe client library for Go with features like Pub/Sub, sentinel, and pipelining. The text explores using go-redis to create a leaderboard API employing Gin and Redis’ sorted sets, with endpoints to retrieve user scores and ranks, update scores, and fetch the entire leaderboard. It details the setup process, including initializing a Go module, installing dependencies, and creating a Redis client within a Go application. The implementation includes defining a User struct, handling database transactions with pipelines, and setting up API routes using Gin. The document also outlines how to utilize Redis commands, such as ZRangeWithScores, to retrieve sorted leaderboard data and demonstrates how to run the application with sample cURL commands. It emphasizes the potential to further explore Redis and go-redis documentation for advanced functionalities and provides a link to the complete code on GitLab.