Composer vs Pacman
Composer
getcomposer.orgPacman
pacman.archlinux.pageSide by side
| Figure | Composer | Pacman |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | — |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 1 | 0 |
| Spec score · Package Managers | 8.9 (#5) | 6.7 (#93) |
| License | Composer and the content on its site are released under the MIT license. | The project page says pacman is licensed under the GNU General Public License, version 2 or later. |
| Package sources | Composer uses Packagist by default and supports custom Composer, VCS, and local path repositories. | It can download packages from remote servers and synchronize with remote repositories. |
| Purpose | Composer is a tool for managing PHP project dependencies, installing and updating the libraries a project declares. | Pacman manages software packages on Linux systems. |
| Support | The project says commercial support and consulting are available through its sponsorship page. | The project asks users to report bugs to its GitLab issue tracker with details such as the command line and the nature of the bug. |
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.
Pacman
Pacman has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.