The easiest way to install memcached is to use homebrew package installer: $ brew install memcached This locates memcached in /usr/local/opt/memcached/bin/ Starting memcached (by default at port 11211 or with -p port_number): $ memcached -p 9000 To have launchd start memcached now and restart at login: $ brew services start memcached To change the default ram size (64mb) used by memcached use -m option: $ memcached -m 128 -p 9000 Lastly, run memcached as a daemon with -d: $ memcached -d -p 9000