head to head · open source
mall vs Weaviate
mall has 84,789 GitHub stars, 29,826 forks, 15 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Weaviate has 16,818 stars, 1,403 forks, 738 open issues and last shipped yesterday. mall leads on adoption by 404% (84,789 vs 16,818 stars). mall is written in Java under Apache-2.0; Weaviate is written in Go under a custom or non-standard licence. mall has attracted 35% as many forks as stars, Weaviate 8%. Weaviate 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.
← all 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| mall | Weaviate | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 85K | ★ 17K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | Java | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-15 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 30K | ⑂ 1.4K |
| 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 Weaviate if
- You want the Weaviate feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and Weaviate 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 Weaviate
Weaviate open source vector database. Stores objects and vectors together. Lives in cloud native database and AI search ecosystem. Enables semantic search at scale. Combines vector similarity search with keyword filtering, retrieval augmented generation, and reranking in single query interface.
read the full Weaviate overview →
More in Infrastructure & Operations
Related comparisons
More Databases projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Databases field.
Frequently asked questions
Is mall or Weaviate more popular?
mall has 84,789 GitHub stars and Weaviate has 16,818. mall has the larger community by that measure.
Are mall and Weaviate free?
Both are open source. mall is licensed under Apache-2.0, and Weaviate has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between mall and Weaviate?
mall is written in Java and Weaviate 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 Weaviate?
Choose mall if you want the larger community (84,789 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Weaviate if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.