tl;dr. Versions in bower and npm are maddeningly inconsistent in a tiny way now consistent.
So… In semver and bower (I’m assuming bower since it relies on the node-semver module), a hypenated version suffix (postfix) decreases precedence <(1.0.0 > 1.0.0-alpha > 1.0.0-1) and non-hypenated suffixes are invalid (1.0.0alpha is invalid).
Whereas in npm, hypenation with a numeric suffix increases precedence (1.0.0-1 > 1.0.0) whereas anything that is not a hypenated number decreases precedence (1.0.0 > 1.0.0alpha). So 1.0.0-1 > 1.0.0-1-a > 1.0.0 > 1.0.0alpha. versioning does in fact follow semver. Npm will automatically append a hypen if you leave it out (1.0.0alpha is 1.0.0-alpha). The (outdated?) npm documentation had led me to believe otherwise. The docs have been updated!