head to head · open source
mall vs sea-orm
mall has 84,792 GitHub stars, 29,827 forks, 15 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. sea-orm has 9,899 stars, 734 forks, 234 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. mall leads on adoption by 757% (84,792 vs 9,899 stars). mall is written in Java under Apache-2.0; sea-orm is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. mall has attracted 35% as many forks as stars, sea-orm 7%. sea-orm 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 | sea-orm | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 85K | ★ 9.9K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-15 | 2026-09-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 30K | ⑂ 734 |
| 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 sea-orm if
- You want the sea-orm feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and sea-orm 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 sea-orm
SeaORM is an Apache 2.0 relational ORM for the Rust ecosystem that maps relational databases onto typed Rust entities, and it is built for Rust developers creating web services and APIs that want structured, type checked database access instead of hand written query strings.
read the full sea-orm overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is mall or sea-orm more popular?
mall has 84,792 GitHub stars and sea-orm has 9,899. mall has the larger community by that measure.
Are mall and sea-orm free?
Both are open source. mall is licensed under Apache-2.0 and sea-orm under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between mall and sea-orm?
mall is written in Java and sea-orm 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 sea-orm?
Choose mall if you want the larger community (84,792 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose sea-orm if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.