How the Mall Open‑Source E‑Commerce Project Grew to 40K Stars

Recent Status

On GitHub's Java Topic ranking, the

mall

project is currently ranked 9th, and many developers have already noticed it. Repository: https://github.com/topics/java

Development History

Initial 20K+ Stars

The author started the

mall

project in early 2018 to combine business scenarios with technology, choosing an e‑commerce domain and SpringBoot as the framework. After more than a year of development, the project reached 20K stars in August 2019. An earlier article titled "My GitHub open‑source project, from 0 to 20,000 Stars!" documented that journey.

SpringCloud Series Tutorial

When the project matured, the author decided to refactor

mall

into a microservices architecture using Spring Cloud, the de‑facto standard for Java microservices. A tutorial series called

springcloud-learning

was created, which has earned over 2.2K stars.

mall‑swarm Microservice Project

After mastering Spring Cloud core components, the

mall

project was transformed into the

mall‑swarm

microservice version. The first version was released in December 2019. A recent major update upgraded the stack to Spring Cloud Hoxton & Alibaba, replaced Eureka and Spring Cloud Config with Nacos, and switched from Spring Security to OAuth2, forming a robust Spring Cloud technology stack.

Key Updates to mall

Deployment evolved from Docker and Docker Compose to include Jenkins for automated production deployment.

Added a self‑hosted MinIO object‑storage solution as a cost‑effective alternative to OSS.

Implemented dynamic permission management, extending both front‑end and back‑end capabilities.

Redesigned SKU handling to store flexible JSON data.

Integrated an ELK logging system with scene‑based log collection for easier production debugging.

Upgraded to SpringBoot 2.3.0, refreshing all dependent library versions.

mall‑tiny Rapid Development Scaffold

The

mall‑tiny

project was created as a lightweight scaffold derived from the full‑stack

mall

architecture, keeping only essential services such as MySQL and Redis. It includes a complete permission management module and can seamlessly integrate with the

mall‑admin‑web

front‑end project, turning it into a ready‑to‑use permission system.

mall‑admin‑web Front‑End Project

The

mall‑admin‑web

front‑end adds permission management features and can be integrated without changes into

mall

,

mall‑swarm

, and

mall‑tiny

, demonstrating high reusability.

mall‑learning Tutorial Project

The

mall‑learning

project serves as a comprehensive tutorial companion to

mall

, offering extensive documentation and sample code. The author continuously learns new technologies within

mall‑learning

and then applies them back to the main

mall

project, providing a practical learning loop.

Future Outlook

The

mall

project has evolved beyond a simple open‑source repository into its own ecosystem, the "mall series". Ongoing updates aim to make it an even better practical learning platform.

Project Addresses

mall

– E‑commerce project: https://github.com/macrozheng/mall

mall‑swarm

– Microservice version: https://github.com/macrozheng/mall-swarm

mall‑admin‑web

– Front‑end project: https://github.com/macrozheng/mall-admin-web

mall‑learning

– Tutorial project: https://github.com/macrozheng/mall-learning

springcloud‑learning

– Spring Cloud tutorials: https://github.com/macrozheng/springcloud-learning

mall‑tiny

– Rapid scaffold: https://github.com/macrozheng/mall-tiny

Recommended Reading

That Script‑Writing Architect Was Fired...

Why Is "1000==1000" False in Java While "100==100" Is True?

Starting from Scratch? Try This Rapid Development Scaffold!

Tired of Writing CRUD Code? This Open‑Source Framework Can Free Your Hands!

Stop Reinventing the Wheel – This Open‑Source Utility Library Is Extremely Handy!