Simpler caching, index maintenance, and ACID.

Append-only algorithms allow for simpler, more efficient caching. Maintaining data indexes and implementing ACID properties, traditionally arduous tasks, is easy and elegant in RethinkDB. This makes RethinkDB less prone to bugs, faster, and more secure.

Databases the way they were meant to be.

RethinkDB borrows ideas from many diverse areas of computer science. Because we're no longer constrained by the limitations of rotational drives, we can bring our ideas to reality and build a database the way it was always meant to be built.

No more seek latency.

RethinkDB is designed to be extremely fast, and implements powerful features that are cumbersome and inefficient with rotational storage. Today's databases heavily optimize to account for high seek latency—the time it takes for a rotational drive's platter to move. RethinkDB takes full advantage of solid-state drives, making traditional data storage layouts unnecessary.

Append-only approach.

Solid-state drives provide fast random reads, enabling append-only storage technology. We use elegant and simple algorithms to deliver amazing features and performance that is up to ten times faster than existing databases.

Ready for multi-core.

Because of lock-free concurrency algorithms, RethinkDB is uniquely positioned to take advantage of multi-core architectures today. Lock contention is the most common performance bottleneck on multi-core processors—a problem RethinkDB resolves. RethinkDB's lock-free approach means it can take advantage of the raw power provided by multi-core CPUs in demanding environments.

More power from every machine.

Scaling databases to multiple machines is expensive and frustrating. RethinkDB performs up to ten times faster on a single machine, allowing you to postpone horizontal scaling for as long as possible. RethinkDB's performance saves you money by cutting the number of machines required to meet your scalability demands.

Consistent data.

Modifying your data in RethinkDB only results in appending changes to the end of a storage file. This eliminates most of the complexity associated with concurrency in traditional databases, and ensures your data is always consistent. Our approach delivers superior performance in concurrent environments.

No more locks.

Database consistency problems require traditional databases to use complicated locks. Because RethinkDB data is always consistent, locking is unnecessary. No locking and no in-place modifications allow readers and writers to access and modify the database concurrently, providing superb throughput without sacrificing low latency.

Live schema changes.

Modern databases have very limited support for altering schemas live. RethinkDB alters tables on the fly. Just alter the table in a transaction on a live machine, and let the database do all the work for you.

Simple replication.

Master/slave replication with RethinkDB is as simple as setting a MySQL environment variable to the connection string of the slave machine. There is nothing else to purchase, set up, or maintain. It's as simple as that.

Database maintenance.

Our unique approach allows performing most common maintenance tasks live. Performing backups, schema updates, and garbage collection offline is unacceptable for modern applications. RethinkDB implements these tasks online, which means no visible slowdowns to your users, and no complicated database administration.

Hot backups.

Performing a hot backup of RethinkDB is as simple as copying its storage files. Incremental backups can be performed with any popular backup software, such as rsync. That's all there is to it. There are no specialized tools or procedures.

No chance of data corruption.

RethinkDB data is always consistent, so there is no chance of widespread data corruption. There is no down time and no repair jobs—only peace of mind.

Instantaneous recovery from power failure.

Data integrity guarantees mean instantaneous recovery from power failure. When RethinkDB starts up, it quickly verifies the consistency of the last transaction. If a crash happened, it quickly rolls back the corrupt data. No log replays are necessary—the database is up instantaneously, every time.

Log-structured journals.

Traditional databases maintain a separate journal of operations to ensure that the database remains in a consistent state. This requires additional I/O and complicated replay algorithms making recovery a difficult, and often time consuming process. Not so with RethinkDB.

The database is the log.

A RethinkDB database is the log. There are no separate files to write, and no special algorithms for us to manage. This results in faster, more efficient code and makes your data safer.

Exciting features you will need.

RethinkDB already comes with many exciting features out of the box, but we also have many revolutionary features in the pipeline. Whether today, or a year from now, RethinkDB will offer an unparalleled database experience.

Database of the future, today.

For the vast majority of applications, RethinkDB works great on today's hardware. As data centers switch to solid-state drives, RethinkDB will be ready to let customers take advantage of these upgrades.

Drop-in MySQL storage engine.

RethinkDB is a drop-in MySQL storage engine. There are absolutely no changes required in your applications, and no new techniques to learn. RethinkDB delivers performance improvements and exciting features to your existing infrastructure, in a matter of minutes.

Continuous performance improvements.

Our algorithms make releasing early and releasing often possible for databases. RethinkDB is designed with simplicity in mind. We build, test, and release performance improvements quickly. You can count on RethinkDB to keep improving performance over time.