Using Atmosphere packages

When to use Atmosphere packages

Atmosphere packages are packages written specifically for Meteor and have several advantages over npm when used with Meteor. In particular, Atmosphere packages can:

• Depend on core Meteor packages, such as ddp, mongo or accounts
• Explicitly include non-javascript files including CSS, Less or static assets
• Have a well defined way to ship different code for client and server, enabling different behavior in each context
• Get direct access to Meteor's package namespacing and package global exports without having to explicitly use ES2015 import
• Enforce exact version dependencies between packages using Meteor's constraint resolver
• Include build plugins for Meteor's build system
• Include pre-built binary code for different server architectures, such as Linux or Windows

If your package depends on another Atmosphere package, or needs to take advantage of Meteor's build system, writing an Atmosphere package might be the best option for now.