What's the difference between Meteor and Meteorite (mrt)?

Question

For example, some sites tell me to use mrt add accounts-ui (using Meteorite, right?) and others say meteor add accounts-ui.

From what I understand, Meteorite is just a version control / package manager. Is this correct? What is the difference between the two commands above?

Glorification

Answer 1

Update

Meteor 0.9 release rendered Meteorite and the mrt command obsolete. All new projects should use meteor add only.

Original answer

meteor add works only for packages issues officially by the Meteor team (here's the list). mrt add is a wrapper that works also for all community packages available from atmosphere.

Weevil

One question: is there a difference in starting a meteor app by typing "mrt" or "meteor"? – Spheroidal

mrt fetch all necessary packages from atmosphere if you don't have them locally, while meteor works only with local copies of packages. So if your app uses a package that hasn't been prefetched, mrt will run while meteor will crash. It's generally better to use meteor, as this is closer to what the app will look like in production. – Weevil

As Pahlevi mentioned, meteorite is no longer needed as of 0.9.0. Just use meteor add author:package. You can look up package authors and names here: atmospherejs.com – Leonardoleoncavallo

So this is 2018 and I am still seeing 'mrt add' for new and recent packages – Thirdrate

Answer 2

They are the same now https://github.com/oortcloud/meteorite/

"NOTE: As of Meteor 0.9.0, Meteorite is no longer required! You can now install Atmosphere packages directly via the meteor tool."

Deadlight

Answer 3

You're right, Meteorite is a packaging system for Meteor. The repository of Meteorite is Atmosphere. It's like a "composer" system with a packagist repository for the PHP language.

So, when you do a "meteor add", you only use the package delivered with the Meteor installation. But with "mrt add", you will be bound to the Meteor original package, like meteor add, or to an Atmosphere repository for all other packages. Finally, because everybody use Meteorite, you just have to use the "mrt" command.

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