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Composer VS Google Hosted Libraries

Compare Composer VS Google Hosted Libraries and see what are their differences

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Contents:
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  3. » Reviews
  4. » Alternatives

Composer logo Composer

Composer is a tool for dependency management in PHP.

Google Hosted Libraries logo Google Hosted Libraries

A stable, reliable, high-speed, globally available content distribution network for the most popular open-source JavaScript libraries.
  • Composer Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-19
  • Google Hosted Libraries Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-24

Composer features and specs

  • Dependency Management
    Composer allows for easy and efficient management of PHP dependencies, ensuring that the correct versions are used and conflicts are minimized.
  • Autoloading
    Composer supports autoloading, which means you don't have to manually include or require files, reducing boilerplate code.
  • Version Control
    It allows developers to specify and install the exact versions of the libraries they need, which helps in maintaining consistency across different environments.
  • Community Support
    Composer has a vast and active community, resulting in a plethora of libraries and packages readily available for use.
  • PSR Compliance
    Composer adheres to PHP-FIG PSR standards, promoting best practices and interoperability among PHP projects.
  • Custom Repositories
    Ability to use custom repositories allows for flexibility, enabling enterprises to create their own repository for internal use.

Possible disadvantages of Composer

  • Learning Curve
    Beginners may find Composer overwhelming due to its command-line interface and the complexity of managing dependencies.
  • Performance
    Installing or updating packages can sometimes be slow, particularly for projects with many dependencies.
  • Dependency Conflicts
    While Composer aims to minimize conflicts, complex projects can still face issues with dependency resolution that require manual intervention.
  • File Size
    Projects using Composer can lead to increased file sizes due to the inclusion of multiple libraries and their dependencies.
  • Security
    Including third-party packages can expose a project to potential security vulnerabilities if those packages are not well-maintained or audited.

Google Hosted Libraries features and specs

  • Improved Load Speed
    Google Hosted Libraries are distributed via Google's global Content Delivery Network (CDN), which can deliver assets to users with minimal latency by caching them at data centers worldwide. This often results in faster load times compared to hosting libraries on your own server.
  • Better Caching
    Using a common source like Google Hosted Libraries means that users are more likely to have cached copies of these libraries from visiting other sites, reducing load time for returning users who have already downloaded the files.
  • Reliability
    Google's infrastructure is reliable and highly available, reducing the risk of downtime and ensuring that libraries are served to end-users efficiently and consistently.
  • Version Management
    Developers can include specific version numbers in the URLs, ensuring that their applications can easily upgrade or downgrade a library version if needed, allowing for better version control management.
  • Reduced Server Load
    Offloading the delivery of these libraries to Google reduces the bandwidth and load on your own servers, potentially lowering hosting costs and improving your site's overall performance.

Possible disadvantages of Google Hosted Libraries

  • Dependency on Third Party
    Relying on Google for serving these libraries means your application's uptime is partially dependent on a third party, which may introduce risks if Google's services experience issues.
  • Privacy Concerns
    Using Google Hosted Libraries means that user data may be shared with Google whenever these resources are fetched, which could raise privacy concerns depending on your user base and regulatory environment.
  • Limited Customization
    Because these libraries are hosted externally, there is limited opportunity to customize or modify them to fit specific project needs without hosting your own version.
  • Internet Requirement
    If a user is offline or if Google's servers are unreachable for some reason, your application may fail to load these libraries unless you have local fallbacks or entire offline support.

Analysis of Composer

Overall verdict

  • Yes, Composer is considered an essential tool for PHP developers due to its efficiency, ease of use, and robust features that streamline the development process.

Why this product is good

  • Composer is a dependency manager for PHP, which simplifies the process of managing and installing libraries for projects. It ensures that the right versions of packages are used and handles dependencies automatically, saving time and reducing errors. It also has a large and active community, providing extensive support and a wealth of packages to choose from.

Recommended for

  • PHP developers looking to manage project dependencies effectively
  • Teams collaborating on PHP projects who need consistent environments
  • Developers maintaining projects with multiple external libraries
  • Anyone seeking to improve the organization and scalability of PHP applications

Composer videos

+ Add

AI vs Human Music Composer 2019 - Orb Composer Review

More videos:

  • Review - Review Composer Cloud from EastWest / Soundsonline.com
  • Review - Behringer Composer PRO-XL MDX2600 Review (AUDIO TEST)

Google Hosted Libraries videos

+ Add

Why you should use Google Hosted libraries!

More videos:

  • Review - Google Hosted Libraries

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Composer and Google Hosted Libraries)

Composer

Google Hosted Libraries

Development Tools
100 100%
Development Tools
0% 0
CDN
0 0%
CDN
100% 100
Javascript UI Libraries
100 100%
Javascript UI Libraries
0% 0
Cloud Computing
0 0%
Cloud Computing
100% 100

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Composer seems to be a lot more popular than Google Hosted Libraries. While we know about 143 links to Composer, we've tracked only 7 mentions of Google Hosted Libraries. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Composer mentions (143)

  • Arguments a customer can understand not to use WordPress
    There is also no requirement to follow the PHP-FIG standards. The best thing that is build because of those standards is Composer. The most plugins I downloaded while writing use composer. The problem is that the plugins ship with their own vendor directory. While the standard is to have one vendor directory for the whole project. This results in different packages with the same or different version of it in the... - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • Insights from the PHP Foundation Executive Director
    “Extensions are now very close to being like packages; they basically look like Composer packages. It’s still open to discussion whether PIE will be part of Composer someday. It’s not decided yet, but I hope it will be,” Roman added. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • PHP Core Security Audit Results
    Dependencies are managed by Composer (like npm, cargo, etc) for more than 10 years now. https://getcomposer.org. - Source: Hacker News / about 2 months ago
  • WordPress and Components
    Composer and Packagist have become key tools for establishing the foundations of PHP-based applications. Packagist is essentially a directory containing PHP code out of which Composer, a PHP-dependency manager, retrieves packages. Their ease of use and exceptional features simplify the process of importing and managing own and third-party components into our PHP projects. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • 2025 Best PHP Micro Frameworks: Slim, Flight, Fat-Free, Lumen, and More!
    Simplicity: Getting started is a breeze—install via Composer, define some routes, and you’re off. Scaling up? Add middleware or libs like Twig or Eloquent as needed. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
View more

Google Hosted Libraries mentions (7)

  • Unpkg CDN down causing dependent website outages
    I'd imagine for many developers, the probability of something like Google's Hosted Libraries (https://developers.google.com/speed/libraries) going down or being hacked is far, far lower than the probability of their own site hosting having a problem. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
  • A list of SaaS, PaaS and IaaS offerings that have free tiers of interest to devops and infradev
    Developers.google.com — The Google Hosted Libraries is a content distribution network for the most popular Open Source JavaScript libraries. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Closure Compiler, JSDOC, Polymer, Lit and apps script
    To make things worse, I can't even find about Polymer or Lit on this list: Https://developers.google.com/speed/libraries. Source: almost 3 years ago
  • Apps Script Observable
    I am looking in the hosted libraries: https://developers.google.com/speed/libraries And found that they have Indefinite Observable, the thing is, as far I know Promisses don't work with apps script web app. But Observables work? Source: almost 3 years ago
  • Public CDN's aren't useful anymore
    Public CDN’s were supposed to help page speed, but things have changed in 2019. Services like Google Fonts, Cloudflare’s cdnjs, jsDelivr and Google Hosted Libraries may not help make sites load faster anymore. - Source: dev.to / about 3 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Composer and Google Hosted Libraries, you can also consider the following products

jQuery - The Write Less, Do More, JavaScript Library.

cdnjs - An open source community driven JS/CSS CDN.

React Native - A framework for building native apps with React

Yandex CDN - Разработчики сайтов могут загружать различные JavaScript-фреймворки и библиотеки с открытым исходным кодом с серверов Яндекса по постоянным ссылкам.

Babel - Babel is a compiler for writing next generation JavaScript.

jsDelivr - A free, fast, and reliable Open Source CDN for npm and GitHub with the largest network and best performance from all OSS CDNs. Serving 100 billion requests per month.

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