head to head · open source
mall vs sonic
mall has 84,792 GitHub stars, 29,827 forks, 15 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. sonic has 21,342 stars, 618 forks, 63 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. mall leads on adoption by 297% (84,792 vs 21,342 stars). mall is written in Java under Apache-2.0; sonic is written in Rust under MPL-2.0. mall has attracted 35% as many forks as stars, sonic 3%. sonic 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 | sonic | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 85K | ★ 21K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-15 | 2026-09-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 30K | ⑂ 618 |
| 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 sonic if
- You want the sonic feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and sonic 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 sonic
Sonic is a fast, lightweight, schema less search backend written in Rust and licensed under MPL 2.0, built for developers and platform teams who need search relevance, typo tolerance, and auto completion without the resource cost of a full document oriented search engine.
read the full sonic overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is mall or sonic more popular?
mall has 84,792 GitHub stars and sonic has 21,342. mall has the larger community by that measure.
Are mall and sonic free?
Both are open source. mall is licensed under Apache-2.0 and sonic under MPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between mall and sonic?
mall is written in Java and sonic 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 sonic?
Choose mall if you want the larger community (84,792 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose sonic if its feature set, stack or MPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.