Last Updated on March 9, 2026
RethinkDB is an open-source scalable database built for realtime applications. It exposes a new database access model — instead of polling for changes, the developer can tell the database to continuously push updated query results to applications in realtime.
RethinkDB allows developers to build scalable realtime apps in a fraction of the time with less engineering effort.
RethinkDB offers an excellent query language.
Features include:
- Push functionality.
- Supports both pull and push models, unlike other databases which support only pull
- Query JSON documents with Python, Ruby, Node.js or dozens of other languages. Build modern apps using your favorite web framework, paired with realtime technologies like Socket.io or SignalR. Official drivers for Ruby, Python, Java, and JavaScript/Node.js. Community-supported drivers exist for more than a dozen other languages, including C#/.NET, Go, and PHP.
- Integrates the latest advances in database technology. It has a modern distributed architecture, a highly-optimized buffer cache, and a state of the art storage engine. All of these components work together to create a robust, scalable, high-performance database.
- Express relationships using joins, build location-aware apps, or store multimedia and time-series data. Do analytics with aggregation and map/reduce, and speed up your apps using flexible indexing. Build realtime dashboards with RethinkDB data push notifications, and make instantaneous business decisions.
- Cross-platform support – runs under Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows.
Website: www.rethinkdb.com
Support: Documentation, Blog, GitHub Code Repository
Developer: RethinkDB
License: GNU Affero General Public License v3.0. The client drivers are licensed under the Apache License v2.0.
RethinkDB is written in C++. Learn C++ with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
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|---|---|
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| ArangoDB | Native multi-model database |
| eXist-db | Database management system entirely built on XML technology |
| RethinkDB | Scalable database built for realtime applications |
| BaseX | XML database engine |
| OrientDB | Document Database with support of ACID Transactions, SQL and Native Queries |
| Aerospike | Key-Value Store and high performance real-time NoSQL (flex-schema) database |
| RavenDB | Fully-transactional NoSQL ACID database |
| Jackrabbit | Open-source content repository for Java |
| TerminusDB | Knowledge graph and document store |
| CrateDB | Distributed SQL database management |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
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