Packagist

Packagist is the primary package repository for the PHP programming language, designed to work with Composer, the standard dependency manager for PHP. It hosts PHP libraries, frameworks, and other packages, and provides metadata such as available versions, autoload information, licenses, and maintainers. Developers publish packages by adding a composer.json file to their project and submitting package data to Packagist; the service indexes releases and exposes them through a web catalog and an API. When a user runs composer require vendor/package, Composer queries Packagist to resolve dependencies and download the appropriate package version from Packagist or a configured source repository.

Packagist was created to be the central hub for PHP packages used with Composer and is operated as an open, community-driven service. It is the default repository for Composer and is widely used across the PHP ecosystem, from small libraries to major frameworks.

Packages on Packagist declare dependencies, autoload rules, licensing, and stability information. Packagist provides a searchable catalog and a REST API that allows programmatic access to package data, versions, and metadata. The platform supports semantic versioning and tracks activity, including new releases and maintainers.

The Packagist ecosystem is closely tied to Composer and the PHP community, and contributions are community-driven. It remains the de facto source of PHP packages, enabling reproducible builds and straightforward dependency management across projects.