head to head · open source
mall vs mall-swarm
mall has 84,792 GitHub stars, 29,827 forks, 15 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. mall-swarm has 13,147 stars, 5,530 forks, 10 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. mall leads on adoption by 545% (84,792 vs 13,147 stars). mall is written in Java under Apache-2.0; mall-swarm is written in Java under Apache-2.0. mall has attracted 35% as many forks as stars, mall-swarm 42%. mall was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 10 topic tags (docker, elasticsearch, java, mongodb), 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 | mall-swarm | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 85K | ★ 13K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-15 | 2026-07-31 |
| Forks | ⑂ 30K | ⑂ 5.5K |
| 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 mall-swarm if
- You want the mall-swarm feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and mall-swarm 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 mall-swarm
mall swarm is an open source microservice e commerce system built on Spring Cloud Alibaba and Spring Boot, intended for Java developers and teams that need a complete mall platform — registry, config center, gateway, monitoring and admin console included — instead of assembling that plumbing from scratch.
read the full mall-swarm overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is mall or mall-swarm more popular?
mall has 84,792 GitHub stars and mall-swarm has 13,147. mall has the larger community by that measure.
Are mall and mall-swarm free?
Both are open source. mall is licensed under Apache-2.0 and mall-swarm under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between mall and mall-swarm?
mall is written in Java and mall-swarm in Java. 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 mall-swarm?
Choose mall if you want the larger community (84,792 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose mall-swarm if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.