head to head · open source
mall vs q
mall has 85,005 GitHub stars, 29,840 forks, 15 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. q has 10,361 stars, 425 forks, 132 open issues and last shipped 9 months ago. mall leads on adoption by 720% (85,005 vs 10,361 stars). mall is written in Java under Apache-2.0; q is written in Python under GPL-3.0. mall has attracted 35% as many forks as stars, q 4%. 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 | q | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 85K | ★ 10K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Java | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-15 | 2026-02-06 |
| Forks | ⑂ 30K | ⑂ 425 |
| 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 q if
- You want the q feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and q fits your workflow better
About mall
mall 友情提示 1. 快速体验项目 ：在线访问地址 。 2. 全套学习教程 ：《mall学习教程》 。 3. 视频教程 ：《mall视频教程》 。 4. 微服务版本 ：基于Spring Cloud Alibaba的项目：mall swarm 。 5. 分支说明 ： master 分支基于Spring Boot 3.5+JDK 17， dev v2 分支基于Spring Boot 2.7+JDK 8。 前言 mall 项目致力于打造一个完整的电商系统，采用现阶段主流技术实现。 项目文档 文档地址： 项目介绍 mall 项目是一套电商系统，包括前台商城系统及后台管理系统，基于SpringBoot+MyBatis实现，采用Docker容器化部署。前台商城系统包含首页门户、商品推荐、商品搜索、商品展示、购物车、订单流程、会员中心、客户服务、帮助中心等模块。后台管理系统包含商品管理、订单管理、会员管理、促销管理、运营管理、内容管理、统计报表、财务管理、权限管理、设置等模块。 项目演示 后台管理系统 前端项目 mall admin web 地址： 项目演示地址： 前台商城系统 前端项目 mall app web 地址： 项目演示地址（将浏览器切换为手机模式效果更佳）： 组织结构 技术选型 后端技术 前端技术 移动端技术 架构图 系统架构图 业务架构图 模块介绍 后台管理系统 mall admin 商品管理：功能结构图…
About q
q Text as Data q's purpose is to bring SQL expressive power to the Linux command line and to provide easy access to text as actual data. q allows the following: Performing SQL like statements directly on tabular text data, auto caching the data in order to accelerate additional querying on the same file. Performing SQL statements directly on multi file sqlite3 databases, without having to merge them or load them into memory The following table shows the impact of using caching: Notice that for the current version, caching is not enabled by default, since the caches take disk space. Use C readwrite or C read to…
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Frequently asked questions
Is mall or q more popular?
mall has 85,005 GitHub stars and q has 10,361. mall has the larger community by that measure.
Are mall and q free?
Both are open source. mall is licensed under Apache-2.0 and q under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between mall and q?
mall is written in Java and q 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 q?
Choose mall if you want the larger community (85,005 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose q if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.