head to head · open source
mall vs rainfrog
mall has 84,792 GitHub stars, 29,827 forks, 15 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. rainfrog has 5,337 stars, 95 forks, 14 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. mall leads on adoption by 1,489% (84,792 vs 5,337 stars). mall is written in Java under Apache-2.0; rainfrog is written in Rust under MIT. mall has attracted 35% as many forks as stars, rainfrog 2%. rainfrog 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 | rainfrog | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 85K | ★ 5.3K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Java | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-15 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 30K | ⑂ 95 |
| 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 rainfrog if
- You want the rainfrog feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and rainfrog 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 rainfrog
rainfrog is a lightweight, MIT licensed terminal database client written in Rust, built for developers and operators who want to browse schemas, run queries, and inspect tables against PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, and similar engines without leaving the shell.
read the full rainfrog overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is mall or rainfrog more popular?
mall has 84,792 GitHub stars and rainfrog has 5,337. mall has the larger community by that measure.
Are mall and rainfrog free?
Both are open source. mall is licensed under Apache-2.0 and rainfrog under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between mall and rainfrog?
mall is written in Java and rainfrog 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 rainfrog?
Choose mall if you want the larger community (84,792 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose rainfrog if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.