composer-overview.html

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## Composer and Magento {#instgde-overview-composer}

We use <a href="https://getcomposer.org/" target="_blank">Composer</a> for dependency management. Composer enables us to manage the Magento components and their dependencies.

As an integrator, you want to manage each of your Magento core components and third-party components using the Component Manager and System Upgrade.

To do so, you start by creating a Composer project from our metapackage. The metapackage installs each component so it can be centrally managed after installation.

Composer provides you with the following advantages:

*	Enables you to reuse third-party libraries without bundling them with source code
*	Component-based architecture with robust dependency management
*	Manages dependencies to reduce extension conflicts and compatibility issues
*	Versioned dependencies
*	<a href="https://getcomposer.org/doc/01-basic-usage.md#package-versions" target="_blank">Semantic versioning</a>
*	Supports the PHP Framework Interoperability standard