head to head · open source
mall vs mycli
mall has 84,792 GitHub stars, 29,827 forks, 15 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. mycli has 11,976 stars, 699 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped yesterday. mall leads on adoption by 608% (84,792 vs 11,976 stars). mall is written in Java under Apache-2.0; mycli is written in Python under BSD-3-Clause. mall has attracted 35% as many forks as stars, mycli 6%. mycli was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (mysql), 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 | mycli | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 85K | ★ 12K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | Java | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-15 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 30K | ⑂ 699 |
| 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 mycli if
- You want the mycli feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and mycli 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 mycli
mycli is a rich terminal client for MySQL compatible databases, aimed at developers, data scientists, and operators who want auto completion, syntax highlighting, and dataframe tooling inside an interactive SQL shell.
read the full mycli overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is mall or mycli more popular?
mall has 84,792 GitHub stars and mycli has 11,976. mall has the larger community by that measure.
Are mall and mycli free?
Both are open source. mall is licensed under Apache-2.0 and mycli under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between mall and mycli?
mall is written in Java and mycli in Python. 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 mycli?
Choose mall if you want the larger community (84,792 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose mycli if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.