head to head · open source
mall vs tile38
mall has 84,792 GitHub stars, 29,827 forks, 15 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. tile38 has 9,732 stars, 622 forks, 163 open issues and last shipped 17 days ago. mall leads on adoption by 771% (84,792 vs 9,732 stars). mall is written in Java under Apache-2.0; tile38 is written in Go under MIT. mall has attracted 35% as many forks as stars, tile38 6%. 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 | tile38 | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 85K | ★ 9.7K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Java | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-15 | 2026-09-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 30K | ⑂ 622 |
| 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 tile38 if
- You want the tile38 feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and tile38 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 tile38
Tile38 is an open source, MIT licensed, in memory geolocation data store and spatial index that doubles as a realtime geofencing server, written in Go and aimed at developers who need to store, query, and react to location data in real time.
read the full tile38 overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is mall or tile38 more popular?
mall has 84,792 GitHub stars and tile38 has 9,732. mall has the larger community by that measure.
Are mall and tile38 free?
Both are open source. mall is licensed under Apache-2.0 and tile38 under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between mall and tile38?
mall is written in Java and tile38 in Go. 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 tile38?
Choose mall if you want the larger community (84,792 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose tile38 if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.