Disclosed are various embodiments for reducing locking in a distributed data store that includes a primary data store and one or more secondary data stores. An update to a data item that is to be applied to the distributed data store is obtained in one or more computing devices. The update is applied to a cached version of the data item when a lock is held. The update is replicated to the one or more data stores after the lock is released. A replication confirmation is obtained from each of at least a predetermined number of the secondary data stores.