Software Alternatives & Startups

RethinkDB VS ViewForge

Compare RethinkDB VS ViewForge and see what are their differences

RethinkDB

The open-source database for the realtime web

Rating
0 reviews
Pricing
Open source
ViewForge

Year/Make/Model fitment search for Shopify. 8 verticals, Smart Parse, and your data in Shopify metaobjects — not a vendor database. Free tier, Pro at $49.

Rating
0 reviews
Pricing
Freemium Free trial $19 / Monthly ($19/month Starter 1,000 products, custom templates, CSV import)
Note: These products don't have any matching categories. If you think this is a mistake, please edit the details of one of the products and suggest appropriate categories.

Which is more popular?

Based on our record, RethinkDB seems to be more popular. It has been mentioned 14 times since March 2021.

social mentions
14 vs 0
Databases popularity
100% vs 0%

Base details

Website, pricing, platforms and company facts side by side.

RethinkDB
ViewForge
Website rethinkdb.com normalview.pro
Pricing
Open source
Freemium Free trial $19 / Monthly ($19/month Starter 1,000 products, custom templates, CSV import) Official pricing
Platforms
Shopify
Company Startup from the United States · 1 - 9 employees · 2026
Listed in

About RethinkDB and ViewForge

In their own words, as submitted to SaaSHub.

RethinkDB
ViewForge

No description of RethinkDB yet.

ViewForge is a Year Make Model (YMM) parts finder for Shopify. Shoppers pick their vehicle, machine or device from cascading dropdowns and see only the parts that fit. Fitment search works across eight verticals — auto, motorcycle, tractor, marine, power equipment, bicycle, printer and...

Read more about ViewForge

Features and specs

What each product offers, as listed by its team.

RethinkDB 5 features
ViewForge 9 features
  • Real-time Capabilities
    RethinkDB offers built-in real-time capabilities that allow applications to subscribe to data changes. This makes it ideal for building real-time applications like live dashboards, multiplayer games, or collaborative tools.
  • Flexible Query Language
    RethinkDB's query language, ReQL, is highly flexible and allows for complex queries. It supports operations such as joins, aggregations, and transformations directly within the database.
  • Distributed Database
    RethinkDB is designed to be distributed from the ground up. It can automatically replicate data and distribute queries across multiple machines to improve scalability and fault tolerance.
  • Web-based Administration
    RethinkDB provides a user-friendly web-based administration interface that simplifies database management and monitoring. This interface makes it easier for developers and system administrators to manage their databases.
  • JSON Data Model
    RethinkDB uses JSON as its data model, which makes it easy to store and work with structured data. This can be especially beneficial for web developers who are used to working with JSON data.

Possible disadvantages

  • Limited Ecosystem
    Compared to more established databases like MySQL or MongoDB, RethinkDB has a smaller ecosystem. This means fewer third-party tools, libraries, and community support are available.
  • Stalled Development
    After the company behind RethinkDB shut down in 2016, the development slowed significantly. Although the project was later open-sourced and the community keeps it alive, the updates and new features are not as frequent.
  • Learning Curve
    While ReQL is powerful, it can have a steep learning curve for developers who are new to RethinkDB or who are more familiar with SQL or other NoSQL query languages.
  • Resource Intensive
    RethinkDB can be more resource-intensive compared to some other databases. It may require more RAM and CPU resources to achieve optimal performance, which can be a consideration for resource-constrained environments.
  • Fewer Enterprise Features
    RethinkDB lacks some enterprise-level features such as advanced security options, comprehensive backup solutions, and robust user management compared to other database systems like MongoDB or PostgreSQL.
  • Fitment Information
    Cascading Year/Make/Model fitment search, up to four levels
  • Vertical integration nobody else has
    8 built-in vertical templates, plus custom templates on paid tiers
  • Shopify Metaobjects
    Fitment stored as native Shopify metaobjects — your data survives uninstall
  • Smart Data Processing
    Smart Parse: extract fitment from existing product titles and descriptions, with confidence scoring
  • CSV Import/Export
    CSV import with fuzzy matching and a coverage dashboard
  • ACES / PIES
    ACES / PIES import and NHTSA VIN decoding
  • My Garage
    Saved-vehicle garage, compatibility table, and product-page fit notice
  • Context Aware Fitment Search
    Collection-level fitment assignment
  • No Obligations
    Free tier with no expiry, up to 50 products

Videos

Walkthroughs and reviews on video.

RethinkDB 3 videos + Add
ViewForge 1 video + Add

Mike Glukhovsky - RethinkDB Year in Review 2015

More videos

  • - RethinkDB for Windows: developer preview
  • - Michael Glukhovsky - Advancing the realtime web with RethinkDB

ViewForge: YMM Search & Filter

Category popularity

How often each product is chosen within a category, 0–100% relative to the other.

Score bands 0–20 21–40 41–50 51–60 61–100
RethinkDB
ViewForge
100% 100%
0% 0%
0% 0%
100% 100%
100% 100%
0% 0%
0% 0%
100% 100%

Questions & Answers

As answered by people managing RethinkDB and ViewForge.

What makes your product unique?

ViewForge's answer:

Three things. (1) Data ownership: ViewForge writes fitment as Shopify metaobjects native to your store — most competitors store fitment in their own database. (2) 8 verticals out of the box: auto, motorcycle, tractor, marine, power equipment, bicycle, printer, electronics — most competitors are automotive-only. (3) Smart Parse: extract fitment automatically from your existing product titles and descriptions instead of re-typing everything.

Why should a person choose your product over its competitors?

ViewForge's answer:

Data ownership. Fitment lives in your Shopify metaobjects, so uninstalling does not take your compatibility data with it. Convermax, EasySearch and PartFinder all keep it in their own databases, and getting it back depends on their export tooling on the day you cancel.

Cost at the low end. The search widget, the compatibility table on the product page and the saved-vehicle garage are all on the free tier, up to 50 products, with no expiry. EasySearch puts the table and the garage behind its $75/month Premium plan. Convermax starts at $250/month.

Automotive and non-automotive coverage. Eight built-in templates, and fully custom templates from $19/month, for catalogs that do not decompose into Year/Make/Model at all.

How would you describe the primary audience of your product?

ViewForge's answer:

Shopify merchants whose customers need to know whether a part fits before they will buy it — and who do not have an engineer on staff to build that themselves.

Concretely: auto and truck parts retailers, powersports and motorcycle dealers, tractor and agricultural parts sellers, marine and outboard suppliers, small-engine and power equipment stores, bicycle and e-bike component shops, printer supply merchants, and electronics accessory sellers.

Catalog sizes run from a few dozen products on the free tier up into the tens of thousands; it is running in production on a catalog of roughly 40,000 SKUs. The common thread is not the industry — it is that "does this fit my thing" is the question deciding the sale.

What's the story behind your product?

ViewForge's answer:

ViewForge came out of agency work. Normal View was building for a parts retailer running roughly 12,000 SKUs who needed fitment search, and every app we evaluated stored the merchant's compatibility data in the vendor's own database.

That is a strange trade when you look at it directly. Fitment data is genuinely expensive to produce — it is weeks of work — and the merchant would not own the result. It would belong to whichever app happened to be installed that year.

Shopify metaobjects made a different answer possible: write fitment as native structured data inside the merchant's own store. The theme reads it, the Storefront API queries it, Admin GraphQL exports it, and it is still there after an uninstall. That decision is what the rest of the app is built around.

Everything else came from real catalogs rather than a roadmap. Eight verticals exist because a tractor catalog is not Year/Make/Model. Smart Parse exists because that retailer had already written fitment into 12,000 product titles, and nobody was ever going to retype them.

Which are the primary technologies used for building your product?

ViewForge's answer:

  • TypeScript
  • Shopify metaobjects, as the fitment data store
  • Shopify theme app extensions for the storefront components: fitment search, saved-vehicle garage, compatibility table, product-page fit notice
  • Shopify Storefront API, for querying fitment from the theme
  • Shopify Admin GraphQL API, for writing and exporting fitment records
  • NHTSA vehicle database, for VIN decoding
  • ACES and PIES XML parsing, for automotive catalog import

User comments

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Reviews and articles

External articles and on-site reviews we used to compare the two products.

RethinkDB no reviews yet
ViewForge no reviews yet

We have no reviews of ViewForge yet. Be the first one to post

Social recommendations and mentions

Recommendations tracked on public social media and blogs since March 2021.

RethinkDB 14 mentions
ViewForge 0 mentions

View more

Tracking ViewForge since Aug 2026.

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