head to head · open source
duckdb vs Billion Mail
duckdb has 42,747 GitHub stars, 4,176 forks, 858 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Billion Mail has 16,171 stars, 1,801 forks, 236 open issues and last shipped 5 months ago. duckdb leads on adoption by 164% (42,747 vs 16,171 stars). duckdb is written in C++ under MIT; Billion Mail is written in Go under AGPL-3.0. duckdb has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, Billion Mail 11%. duckdb was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| duckdb | Billion Mail | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 43K | ★ 16K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | C++ | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-06-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.2K | ⑂ 1.8K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick duckdb if
- You weight community size — 43K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Billion Mail if
- You want the Billion Mail feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and Billion Mail fits your workflow better
About duckdb
DuckDB DuckDB is a high performance analytical database system. It is designed to be fast, reliable, portable, and easy to use. DuckDB provides a rich SQL dialect with support far beyond basic SQL. DuckDB supports arbitrary and nested correlated subqueries, window functions, collations, complex types (arrays, structs, maps), and several extensions designed to make SQL easier to use. DuckDB is available as a standalone CLI application and has clients for Python, R, Java, Wasm, etc., with deep integrations with packages such as pandas and dplyr. For more information on using DuckDB, please refer to the DuckDB…
read the full duckdb overview →
About Billion Mail
BillionMail 📧 An Open Source MailServer, NewsLetter, Email Marketing Solution for Smarter Campaigns [![][license shield]][license link] [![][docs shield]][docs link] [![][github release shield]][github release link] [![][github stars shield]][github stars link] English 简体中文 日本語 Türkçe What is BillionMail? BillionMail is a future open source Mail server, Email marketing platform designed to help businesses and individuals manage their email campaigns with ease. Whether you're sending newsletters, promotional emails, or transactional messages, this tool will provide full control over your email marketing efforts…
read the full Billion Mail overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is duckdb or Billion Mail more popular?
duckdb has 42,747 GitHub stars and Billion Mail has 16,171. duckdb has the larger community by that measure.
Are duckdb and Billion Mail free?
Both are open source. duckdb is licensed under MIT and Billion Mail under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between duckdb and Billion Mail?
duckdb is written in C++ and Billion Mail in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, duckdb or Billion Mail?
Choose duckdb if you want the larger community (42,747 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Billion Mail if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.