composer-overview.html

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<h2 id="instgde-overview-composer">Composer and Magento</h2>
We now use <a href="https://getcomposer.org/" target="_blank">Composer</a> for dependency management. Composer enables us to manage the Magento components and their dependencies.

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  <p>Everyone who uses the Magento software must install Composer to update components and Magento. If you install Magento using an <a href="{{page.baseurl}}install-gde/prereq/zip_install.html">archive</a>, you don't need Composer to <em>install</em> Magento, but you do need Composer for updates.</p></span>
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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