The trick is that there is no actual definition of minimal, so you can always add it to your list of adjectives and sound more hip as a result. Another good one is "clean".

All my code is bloated and messy, tbh.

We try and help you keep it clean. Check out https://github.com/feathersjs/feathers-chat to see what our idea of an app should look like. Obviously, different strokes for different folks, but that's the kind of code we like.

Express claims to be a "Fast, unopinionated, minimalist web framework for Node.js" so we decided that minimal fits well because Feathers at it's core is just a very small extension to and in the spirit (or so we'd like to think ;) of Express.

The core product doesn't ship any of them, so you can choose the _one_ you need, or provide your own implementation by satisfying their well-designed service interface:

http://docs.feathersjs.com/services/readme.html

Out of the box maybe the wrong way to describe it. You install additional plugins for the different data sources support.

Out of the box is an appropriate way to describe it if it's a plugin that's been developed, tested, and guaranteed to work by the core team. Just because it's not installed/enabled by default is a good thing IMO.

Anyone knows if there any plan to support rethinkDB? Which is a realtime DB.

RethinkDB support is in the works for sure! https://github.com/feathersjs/feathers-rethinkdb/issues/9