What is the difference between component and bower?

Question

I had a hard time finding an overview of the differences between component and bower. Which one is better, what is the better package manager to use? Are there any alternatives to these two I should consider?

Answer 1

A "component" is a part of a system. Bower is package manager.

Which one is better? Read the Bower FAQ for differences.

Bower seems to make better what it aims for, that is a package manager for the web.

There are also Jam, Volo, or Ender. And of course, NPM.

For popularity and adoption check, you can check Ohloh

UPDATE:

Component package manager https://github.com/component/component is also a package manager for the web. It uses GitHub as a back-end database for modules, so modules that are not on GitHub will not be listed. This approach however makes things easier, as there is no need for additional credentials; authors just use GitHub.

Personally, I think Component should adapt a distinctive name, so that it would be not confused with the general word "component."