Three changes made Bower 80,366 redundant. Module bundlers (Browserify 169,830 , then webpack 3,824 ) let front-end code require() packages and ship a single optimized file, so the browser no longer needed a flat folder of loose scripts. npm 3 2,036 (2015) flattened node_modules as far as versions allowed, removing Bower's main structural advantage. And libraries such as jQuery 561 , Bootstrap 2,007 and React 7,897 began publishing to npm first, so one registry and one lockfile could serve both the server and the browser.
In 2017 Bower's maintainers told users to migrate, and its home page still says: "While Bower is maintained, we recommend using Yarn 11,798 and Vite 25,978 for front-end projects." The npm package, 1.8.14, is not formally marked deprecated, so npm install bower printed no warning. Yet Bower has no lockfile, no integrity hashes and no audit database, and every install depends on Git 1,932 hosting. Treat any bower.json you find as technical debt.