Composer vs Conan
Composer
getcomposer.org
Conan
conan.ioSide by side
| Figure | Composer | Conan |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | — | Yes |
| Android | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 1 | 2 |
| Spec score · Package Managers | 8.9 (#5) | 9.0 (#3) |
| Dependency resolution | Composer determines which package versions need to be installed and can update all dependencies in one command. | Yes |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Lockfile support | Yes | Yes |
| Offline installation | Yes | Yes |
| Package formats | PHP packages; ZIP; TAR; VCS repositories | Conan recipes and binary packages |
| Private registry auth | Yes | Yes |
| Supported platforms | PHP; Windows; Linux; macOS | Linux,Windows,macOS,Android,iOS,embedded and bare-metal targets |
| Workspace support | Yes | Yes |
Plans
In their own words
Composer
Composer manages dependencies for PHP projects, installing and updating the libraries each project declares. By default, it keeps those dependencies in a directory within the project, and it can also manage a global project. It resolves dependencies and supports lockfiles, workspaces, private registry authentication, and offline installation. Packagist is its default package source; custom Composer, version-control, and local-path repositories are also supported. Composer integrates with Fossil, Git, Mercurial, Perforce, and Subversion. It can be installed locally or as a system-wide executable on Windows, Linux, and macOS. The latest version requires PHP 7.2.5 or later; the 2.2.x LTS line supports PHP 5.3.2 and later. Its audit command checks installed packages for security advisories, abandoned packages, malware flags, and other dependency policies. Composer is free under the MIT license. Plugins and scripts can run with the user's permissions, so the project advises against running Composer as root with untrusted packages.
Conan
Conan is a free, open-source package manager for C and C++ projects. It manages dependencies and binary packages through Conan recipes, with dependency resolution, lockfiles, workspaces, private registry authentication and offline installation. Binary configurations can vary by architecture, compiler and version, runtime, and C++ standard library. If a matching binary is unavailable, Conan can build from source on demand. It supports Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, iOS, embedded and bare-metal targets, as well as desktop, server and mobile platforms. Build integrations include CMake, MSBuild, Makefiles, Meson and SCons; other integrations include Docker, MinGW, WSL and JFrog Artifactory. Teams can share and reuse native binaries. Artifactory Community Edition offers self-hosted private package hosting, with a WebUI, authentication and permissions. Conan is released under the MIT License. The listed plan describes the package manager as free and open source; no price is stated for either plan.