head to head · open source
duckdb vs mailtrain
duckdb has 41,440 GitHub stars, 3,798 forks, 858 open issues and last shipped yesterday. mailtrain has 5,751 stars, 707 forks, 116 open issues and last shipped 12 months ago. duckdb leads on adoption by 621% (41,440 vs 5,751 stars). duckdb is written in C++ under MIT; mailtrain is written in JavaScript under GPL-3.0. duckdb has attracted 9% 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 | ★ 41K | ★ 5.8K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | C++ | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2025-10-05 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.8K | ⑂ 707 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick duckdb if
- You weight community size — 41K 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 is an analytical, in process SQL database management system written in C++ and released under the MIT license. It runs inside the application process rather than as a separate server, and it is distributed as a standalone command line application as well as through clients for Python, R, Java, and WebAssembly. The project lives in the analytical SQL ecosystem, where the topics listed for it are analytics, database, embedded database, OLAP, and SQL. It has been developed for about eight years, with the last push recorded on 15 September 2026.
read the full duckdb overview →
About mailtrain
Mailtrain is a self hosted newsletter application built on Node.js (v14 or later) with MySQL (v8 or later) or MariaDB (v10 or later) as the data store. Version 2 is a complete rewrite that mostly implements all features of version 1 while adding more, so it must be installed from scratch; existing v1 databases can be backed up and reused, as Mailtrain v2 is able to upgrade the schema. The project lives in the JavaScript ecosystem and is distributed under the GPL 3.0 license, with roughly 5,752 stars, 708 forks and 116 open issues on its repository, which has been active for about ten years with the last push in O…
read the full mailtrain overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is duckdb or mailtrain more popular?
duckdb has 41,440 GitHub stars and mailtrain has 5,751. 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 (41,440 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose mailtrain if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.