head to head · open source
mall vs pgdog
mall has 84,792 GitHub stars, 29,827 forks, 15 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. pgdog has 5,498 stars, 282 forks, 208 open issues and last shipped yesterday. mall leads on adoption by 1,442% (84,792 vs 5,498 stars). mall is written in Java under Apache-2.0; pgdog is written in Rust under AGPL-3.0. mall has attracted 35% as many forks as stars, pgdog 5%. pgdog 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 | pgdog | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 85K | ★ 5.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Java | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-15 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 30K | ⑂ 282 |
| 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 pgdog if
- You want the pgdog feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and pgdog 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 pgdog
PgDog is an open source proxy for scaling PostgreSQL that pools connections, load balances queries across primary and replicas, and shards entire databases, written in Rust and aimed at teams whose PostgreSQL deployments have outgrown a single client to server connection per application process.
read the full pgdog overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is mall or pgdog more popular?
mall has 84,792 GitHub stars and pgdog has 5,498. mall has the larger community by that measure.
Are mall and pgdog free?
Both are open source. mall is licensed under Apache-2.0 and pgdog under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between mall and pgdog?
mall is written in Java and pgdog in Rust. 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 pgdog?
Choose mall if you want the larger community (84,792 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose pgdog if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.