Core Components Introduction

Last update: March 27, 2025

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Core Components

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In Adobe Experience Manager, components are the structural elements that constitute the content of the pages being authored. Components have always been a fundamental element of the AEM experience, making page creation simple but powerful for the author and the development of components flexible and extensible for the developer.

The Core Components are a set of standardized Web Content Management (WCM) components for AEM to speed up development time and reduce maintenance cost of your websites.

Resources

Component Library: A collection of examples to view the components in their various configurations.
Component Documentation (this document): For developers and authors, with details about each component.
Core Components GitHub Repository: For developer details of each component and project download.
Get Started:
- Success with the Core Components: Guidelines to consider well before the start of any project that will use the Core Components.
- WKND Tutorial: A two-day tutorial for building a new site.
- Summit Tutorial: A two-hour tutorial for building a new site (from a Lab at US Summit 2019).
- Gems Webinar: A guided tour of the Core Components (recorded on Dec 2018).

Features


Production-Ready	The Core Components are 30 robust WCM components that are well tested, widely used, and that perform well.
Cloud-Ready	Whether on AEM as a Cloud Service, on Adobe Managed Services, or on-premise, they just work.
Versatile	The components represent generic concepts with which the authors can assemble nearly any layout.
Configurable	Template-level content policies define which features the page authors are allowed to use or not use.
Responsive	All Core Components are designed to be fully responsive, ensuring a seamless experience across devices
Trackable	The Adobe Client Data Layer integration allows tracking of all aspects of the visitor experience.
Accessible	They comply with WCAG 2.1 standard, provide ARIA labels, and support keyboard navigation (known issues).
SEO-Friendly	The HTML output is semantic and provides schema.org microdata annotations.
WebApp-Ready	The streamlined JSON output allows client-side rendering, still with a possibility of in-context editing.
AMP Support	The components have built-in support for the AMP standard, accelerating your mobile experiences.
Design Kit	A UI kit for Adobe XD allows designers to create wireframes that they can then style as needed.
Themeable	The components implement the Style System, and the markup follows BEM CSS conventions.
Customizable	Several patterns allow easy customization, from adjusting the HTML to advanced functionality reuse.
Versioning	The versioning policy ensures that the Core Components won’t break your site when improving things that might impact you.
Localizable	Smart reference resolution allows certain components to find and render corresponding localized content automatically.
Open Sourced	If something is not as it should, contribute your improvements!

The WCM Components

The current version of the Core Components features the following components.

Template Components

Page Authoring Components

Container Components

Form Components

NOTE

Core Components are not immediately available to authors, the development team must first integrate them to your environment. Once integrated, they may be made available and pre-configured via the template editor.

NOTE

Some versions of individual Core Components may only be compatible with certain versions of AEM.

See the individual help page (linked to in the previous list) for the specific component for compatibility information or reference the Core Components Versions document for more information.

System Requirements

Core Components Release

AEM as a Cloud Service

AEM 6.5 Patch Level

Java SE Version

Maven Version

2.28.0

Continual

6.5.21.0+

8, 11

3.3.9+

For the requirements from previous Core Component releases, see Core Components Versions.

The Core Components require the use of editable templates and do not support Classic UI nor static templates. If needed, check out the AEM Modernization Tools to update your project with these modern AEM features.

To set up your local development environment, check out this overview for AEM as a Cloud Service SDK or this document for older versions of AEM.

TIP

The Core Components are automatically part of AEM as a Cloud Service and you always have the latest release of the Core Components.

See the Using Core Components document for more information on how to get started with the Core Components both in AEMaaCS and on premises.

Other Components

There are additional components available to AEM authors, which are built on the Core Components.

The Email Core Components - Discover components built on top of the Core Components specifically for use with Adobe Campaign.

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