head to head · open source
mall vs zookeeper
mall has 84,792 GitHub stars, 29,827 forks, 15 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. zookeeper has 12,806 stars, 7,319 forks, 242 open issues and last shipped yesterday. mall leads on adoption by 562% (84,792 vs 12,806 stars). mall is written in Java under Apache-2.0; zookeeper is written in Java under Apache-2.0. mall has attracted 35% as many forks as stars, zookeeper 57%. zookeeper was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (java), 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 | zookeeper | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 85K | ★ 13K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-15 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 30K | ⑂ 7.3K |
| 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 zookeeper if
- You want the zookeeper feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and zookeeper 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 zookeeper
Apache ZooKeeper is an Apache 2.0 licensed Java coordination service, published from the apache/zookeeper repository, used by distributed systems to hold shared configuration, naming and synchronisation state.
read the full zookeeper overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is mall or zookeeper more popular?
mall has 84,792 GitHub stars and zookeeper has 12,806. mall has the larger community by that measure.
Are mall and zookeeper free?
Both are open source. mall is licensed under Apache-2.0 and zookeeper under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between mall and zookeeper?
mall is written in Java and zookeeper in Java. 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 zookeeper?
Choose mall if you want the larger community (84,792 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose zookeeper if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.