napari-plugin-manager

What it is and what it does

napari-plugin-manager is a standalone graphical tool for managing the napari plugin ecosystem. It was extracted from the main napari codebase to evolve independently and now runs as a separate application that lets users search, install, update, and uninstall napari plugins without leaving the GUI. The tool detects whether napari was installed via conda or pip and offers the appropriate installer by default, though users can override this choice per plugin.

The package wraps both pip and conda as backend installers, queues multiple installation tasks sequentially, and pulls plugin metadata from the npe2api service. It supports direct package installation by name, URL, or by dragging and dropping PyPI artifacts. Users can also export and import plugin lists in requirements.txt format for sharing configurations across environments.

Use it for:

• Install napari plugins from a curated ecosystem list without opening a terminal or package manager.
• Switch between conda and pip installers per plugin to balance dependency resolution and availability.
• Batch queue multiple plugin installations, updates, and removals to run sequentially without manual intervention.
• Export and share a reproducible napari plugin configuration across team members or environments.
• Search and filter available plugins by name or description to discover new tools for image analysis workflows.

Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying

Provides a graphical interface for discovering, installing, updating, and uninstalling napari plugins through both pip and conda package managers.

Yes, if you use napari and want a point-and-click plugin manager. The package is actively maintained, has low install friction, carries a permissive license, and solves a real usability gap for non-terminal users. It is still in alpha (Development Status 3) and relatively young (first release May 2023), so expect occasional rough edges, but no known security vulnerabilities and a clear maintenance signal make it a reasonable choice for napari users who prefer GUI-driven plugin discovery.

Install

napari-plugin-manager on PyPI

pip install napari-plugin-manager

uv add napari-plugin-manager

poetry add napari-plugin-manager

Installing napari-plugin-manager

Before you install

Low friction installation with five runtime dependencies. Actively maintained with recent commits; last release was 148 days ago and the repository is not archived.

License in practice

Distributed under BSD-3-Clause, a permissive open-source license allowing commercial and private use with minimal restrictions.

Quickstart

pip install napari-plugin-manager

from napari_plugin_manager import PluginManagerDialog
dialog = PluginManagerDialog()

Requires Python 3.10 or later; Qt environment via qtpy and superqt for the GUI to display.

Verify before relying

• Whether the npe2api service (napari.org REST API) is reliably available and documented for offline scenarios.
• Performance characteristics when managing large numbers of installed plugins or querying many available plugins.
• Compatibility matrix between specific napari versions and napari-plugin-manager releases.

Package facts

Evidence: napari_plugin_manager-0.1.11-py3-none-any.whl

Tags

More Scientific/Engineering packages