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Margarine as a generic term, can indicate any of a wide range of butter substitutes. In many parts of the world, margarine has become the best-selling table spread, although butter and olive oil also command large market shares. Margarine is an ingredient in the preparation of many other foods. In some regions, people may refer to margarine as butter in informal speech, but (at least in the United States and the European Community) laws forbid food packaging to refer to margarine as "butter". Recipes sometimes refer to margarine as oleo or as shortening.

Modern margarine can be made from any of a wide variety of animal or vegetable fats, and is often mixed with skimmed milk, salt, and emulsifiers. Margarine made from vegetable oils is especially important in today's market, as it provides a substitute for butter which is both vegan and pareve. Nearly all margarine is salted, which makes shortening (which contains no salt) a better choice for baking.

Three main types of margarine are common:

• Hard, generally uncolored margarine for cooking or baking. (Shortening)
• "Traditional" margarines for such uses as spreading on toast, which contain saturated fats are mostly made from vegetable oils.
• Margarines high in mono- or poly-unsaturated fats, which are made from safflower, sunflower, soybean, cottonseed, or olive oil, and which are said to be healthier than butter or other types of margarine.

Many popular table spreads today are blends of margarine and butter — something that was long illegal in countries including the United States and Australia — and are designed to combine the lower cost and easy-spreading of artificial butter with the taste of the real thing.

Margarine, particularly polyunsaturated margarine, has become a major part of the Western diet. In the United States, for example, in 1930 the average person ate over 18 lb (8 kg) of butter a year and just over 2 lb (900g) of margarine. By the end of the 20th century, an average American ate just under 4 lb (1.8 kg) of butter and nearly 8 lb (3.6 kg) of margarine.

Under European Union directives, margarine products cannot be called "butter", even if most of it consists of natural butter. In some European countries butter based table spreads and margarine products are marketed as "butter mixtures".

These "butter mixtures" comprise a significant portion of the table spread market. The brand "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" spawned a variety of similarly-named spreads that can be found on supermarket shelves all over the world. With names like "Utterly Butterly," "You'd Butter Believe it," "Unbelieveable! This Is Not Butter," and "Butterlicious," these butter mixtures avoid the restrictions on labeling with marketing techniques that imply a strong similarity to real butter.

The United States imports 10 billion pounds (4.5 million tons) of margarine a year. Additionally, the United States exports 2 billion pounds (900,000 tons) of margarine annually.