head to head · open source
duckdb vs mailtrain
duckdb has 42,747 GitHub stars, 4,176 forks, 858 open issues and last shipped yesterday. mailtrain has 5,754 stars, 706 forks, 116 open issues and last shipped 1.1 years ago. duckdb leads on adoption by 643% (42,747 vs 5,754 stars). duckdb is written in C++ under MIT; mailtrain is written in JavaScript under GPL-3.0. duckdb has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, mailtrain 12%. 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 | mailtrain | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 43K | ★ 5.8K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | C++ | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2025-10-05 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.2K | ⑂ 706 |
| 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 mailtrain if
- You want the mailtrain feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and mailtrain 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 mailtrain
Mailtrain v2 Mailtrain is a self hosted newsletter application built on Node.js (v14+) and MySQL (v8+) or MariaDB (v10+). This is version 2 of Mailtrain. It mostly implements all features of v1 and add some more. It is a complete rewrite, so you will have to install it from scratch. If you are upgrading from Mailtrain v1, backup the DB and use it for Mailtrain v2. Mailtrain v2 should be able to upgrade the DB to the new schema. Features Subscriber lists management List segmentation Custom fields Email templates (including MJML based templates) Custom reports Automation (triggered and RSS campaigns) Multiple…
read the full mailtrain overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is duckdb or mailtrain more popular?
duckdb has 42,747 GitHub stars and mailtrain has 5,754. duckdb has the larger community by that measure.
Are duckdb and mailtrain free?
Both are open source. duckdb is licensed under MIT and mailtrain under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between duckdb and mailtrain?
duckdb is written in C++ and mailtrain in JavaScript. 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 mailtrain?
Choose duckdb if you want the larger community (42,747 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose mailtrain if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.