 <p>Vinai published a great writeup on Magento and Composer <a href="http://magebase.com/magento-tutorials/composer-with-magento/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here</a>. </p> <p>Quoting from there</p> <blockquote> <p>Composer will use packagist.org to look where to get the libraries. Because Magento modules aren’t listed there, you will have to add the packages.firegento.org repository to the configuration as follows [...]</p> </blockquote> <p>So you will need the repository</p> <pre><code> "repositories":[ { "type":"composer", "url":"http://packages.firegento.com" } ], </code></pre> <p>to get the magento composer installer.</p> <p>And yes composer offers replacements. On the packaging entry for <a href="https://packagist.org/packages/aoepeople/composer-installers" rel="nofollow noreferrer">aoepeople/composer-installers</a> you will notice the replaces section:</p> <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/HBiXf.png" alt="Package Screenshot"></p> <p>And since <code>magento-hackathon/magento-composer-installer</code> is not available on packagist composer will deliver you <code>aoepeople/composer-installers</code>.</p>