head to head · open source
mall vs flipper
mall has 84,792 GitHub stars, 29,827 forks, 15 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. flipper has 3,969 stars, 441 forks, 33 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. mall leads on adoption by 2,036% (84,792 vs 3,969 stars). mall is written in Java under Apache-2.0; flipper is written in Ruby under MIT. mall has attracted 35% as many forks as stars, flipper 11%. flipper was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (mysql, redis), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
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 | flipper | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 85K | ★ 4.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Java | Ruby |
| Last push | 2026-09-15 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 30K | ⑂ 441 |
| 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 flipper if
- You want the flipper feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You evaluated both and flipper 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 flipper
Flipper is an MIT licensed Ruby and Rails library that gives applications control over who has access to features, letting teams enable or disable functionality for everyone, specific actors, groups, a percentage of actors, or a percentage of time.
read the full flipper overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is mall or flipper more popular?
mall has 84,792 GitHub stars and flipper has 3,969. mall has the larger community by that measure.
Are mall and flipper free?
Both are open source. mall is licensed under Apache-2.0 and flipper under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between mall and flipper?
mall is written in Java and flipper in Ruby. 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 flipper?
Choose mall if you want the larger community (84,792 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose flipper if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.