Difference between hyperledger composer and hyperl

Question

I am java developer and new to hyperledger. I am interested in learning it and need to know where to start . fabric vs composer?

Answer 1

Hyperledger composer is just a framework to deploy business networks on hyperledger Fabric Blockchain. You can even deploy applications on Fabric(using chaincodes written in Golang or Node) itself but composer just simplifies the process. In composer you have Participants in your network, Assets and then you define the transactions that you want to perform. You can look into composer tutorials https://hyperledger.github.io/composer/latest/tutorials/tutorials.html

Answer 2

To develop production ready application Composer is not the best option since it lacks from a full set of features that are available using 'native' go based smart contract. Also be aware that Composer needs to be baked up by running fabric based blockchain network, otherwise it is useless. Composer operations that are managed using Web UI are not written in any blockchain but in memory instead.

Those are the main differences between Composer and Fabric, so definetively Composer is a great tool to build mockups, make PoC, etc

Answer 3

Hyperledger Composer simplifies application development on top of the Hyperledger Fabric blockchain infrastructure.

If you are interested in the blockchain infrastructure, start with the Fabric tutorials.

If you are interested in blockchain applications, start with the Composer tutorials.

The Fabric tutorials also include samples of low level chaincode development (in golang). Composer is a higher level application development framework.

I'd suggest trying both to get an overall view of the capabilities.

As a Java developer, you will also want to check out the Fabric Java SDK for building Java client applications that interact with the blockchain. Java chaincode is also available as of Fabric v1.3.

Answer 4

As of the 29th August 2019, the Hyperledger Composer project is in deprecated status. You can still use it, but thinking for the future it is better to start with fabric docs. And now the fabric tutorials are much improved.

Answer 5

Updated answer (as promised in previous post): Hyperledger Composer v0.19.0 (time of writing - Apr 1st 2018) is the default release for building your blockchain business networks using Composer. So when you pull HL/Composer eg via npm install etc) - this uses the current GA edition of Hyperledger Fabric v1.1, the underlying blockchain network infrastructure. This 0.19.0 release includes a fundamental change in the way that Composer business networks are deployed (vis-a-vis previous releases eg 0.16.x - 0.18.x). Business networks are now deployed within Hyperledger Fabric 'as chaincode' - meaning that the business network (rather than Composer runtime) can be agreed by all parties (to the blockchain network) and signed, using a similar management model to non-Composer chaincode. In a later edition, the plan is to add JS requires so that these can be exploited in NodeJS and include other JS functions you've developed - of course, you can already call native Fabric APIs/chaincode functions already, from Composer transaction processors - introduced prior to 0.19.x release). See more info here in the release notes -> https://github.com/hyperledger/composer/releases/tag/v0.19.0

Answer 6

It helps you to start if you know that hyperledger fabric is a framework and hyperledger composer is a tool for building blockchain business networks. Composer provides a GUI user interface "Playground" for the creation of applications, and therefore represents an excellent starting point for Proof of Concept work.