Memcached is an in-memory key-value store used for caching database query results and API responses to improve performance. It was created by Danga Interactive to speed up LiveJournal and reduces database load. Many large sites use it like Wikipedia, Twitter, YouTube. Memcached resides on servers separately from databases for fast read/write of small chunks of data. It improves response times by caching content before databases and reduces database load. Languages like PHP, Python, Java have Memcached APIs.