head to head · open source
reaction vs mall4j
reaction has 12,399 GitHub stars, 2,176 forks, 96 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. mall4j has 5,255 stars, 1,360 forks, 14 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. reaction leads on adoption by 136% (12,399 vs 5,255 stars). reaction is written in JavaScript under GPL-3.0; mall4j is written in JavaScript under AGPL-3.0. reaction has attracted 18% as many forks as stars, mall4j 26%. mall4j was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (ecommerce), 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.
← all 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| reaction | mall4j | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 12K | ★ 5.3K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-03-01 | 2026-09-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.2K | ⑂ 1.4K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick reaction if
- You weight community size — 12K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick mall4j if
- You want the mall4j feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and mall4j fits your workflow better
About reaction
Mailchimp Open Commerce, formerly Reaction Commerce, is an API first, headless commerce platform built on Node.js, MongoDB, and GraphQL for development teams that want to run a custom storefront, marketplace, or multi shop operation on their own infrastructure — and the project has been discontinued.
read the full reaction overview →
About mall4j
Mall4j is a Java mall system source code product family whose main open source repository provides a Spring Boot 4 and Vue3 B2C single merchant e commerce storefront and admin backend, written for developers and teams who want to study, evaluate, or build on a Java mall codebase.
read the full mall4j overview →
More in Business Software
Related comparisons
More E-commerce Platforms projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the E-commerce Platforms field.
Frequently asked questions
Is reaction or mall4j more popular?
reaction has 12,399 GitHub stars and mall4j has 5,255. reaction has the larger community by that measure.
Are reaction and mall4j free?
Both are open source. reaction is licensed under GPL-3.0 and mall4j under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between reaction and mall4j?
reaction is written in JavaScript and mall4j in JavaScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, reaction or mall4j?
Choose reaction if you want the larger community (12,399 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose mall4j if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.