head to head · open source
mall vs badger
mall has 84,792 GitHub stars, 29,827 forks, 15 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. badger has 15,761 stars, 1,318 forks, 69 open issues and last shipped 10 days ago. mall leads on adoption by 438% (84,792 vs 15,761 stars). mall is written in Java under Apache-2.0; badger is written in Go under Apache-2.0. mall has attracted 35% as many forks as stars, badger 8%. mall 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
| mall | badger | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 85K | ★ 16K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-15 | 2026-09-08 |
| Forks | ⑂ 30K | ⑂ 1.3K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick mall if
- You weight community size — 85K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick badger if
- You want the badger feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and badger fits your workflow better
About mall
mall is a complete e commerce system built on Spring Boot and MyBatis, distributed as a Java project under the Apache 2.0 license. It ships two applications in one repository: a storefront system for shoppers and an administrative back office for operators. The storefront covers the home portal, product recommendation, product search, product display, shopping cart, order flow, member center, customer service, and help center. The back office covers product management, order management, member management, promotion management, operations management, content management, statistics reports, finance management, perm…
About badger
BadgerDB is an embeddable, persistent, fast key value database written in pure Go, aimed at Go developers who need local high performance storage inside their own applications rather than a separate database server.
read the full badger overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is mall or badger more popular?
mall has 84,792 GitHub stars and badger has 15,761. mall has the larger community by that measure.
Are mall and badger free?
Both are open source. mall is licensed under Apache-2.0 and badger under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between mall and badger?
mall is written in Java and badger 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, mall or badger?
Choose mall if you want the larger community (84,792 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose badger if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.