---
id: scalar-fastapi
version: "1.8.2"
license: MIT
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: active
---

# scalar-fastapi — This plugin provides an easy way to render a beautiful API reference based on a OpenAPI/Swagger file with FastAPI.

License: permissive · Maintenance: active · Downloads: 1.8M/mo

## What it is and what it does

scalar-fastapi is a FastAPI plugin that automatically generates and serves beautiful, interactive API documentation from your OpenAPI/Swagger specifications. It renders the documentation in the browser, giving developers and API consumers an intuitive interface to explore endpoints, parameters, and responses without leaving your application.

The package integrates directly into FastAPI with minimal setup and no external runtime dependencies. It's designed to replace or supplement the default Swagger UI or ReDoc documentation that FastAPI provides, offering an alternative visual presentation of your API contract.

Use it for:

- Replace default FastAPI documentation with a more polished, branded API reference for client-facing deployments
- Provide interactive API exploration for internal teams during development and testing
- Generate shareable, self-contained API documentation that updates automatically as your OpenAPI spec changes
- Serve multiple API versions or related endpoints through a single, unified documentation interface

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

Serves interactive, browser-based API documentation from OpenAPI/Swagger specifications directly within FastAPI applications.

Yes. The package is actively maintained, has no dependencies to manage, installs cleanly, carries a permissive MIT license, and solves a common need—serving better-looking API docs in FastAPI. Install it if you want to replace FastAPI's default documentation with a more polished alternative.

## Install

pip install scalar-fastapi
uv add scalar-fastapi
poetry add scalar-fastapi

## Installing scalar-fastapi

Before you install: Low friction installation with no runtime dependencies. Actively maintained with recent releases and a substantial repository presence.

License in practice: MIT license permits commercial and private use with minimal restrictions; suitable for most projects.

Quickstart:

pip install scalar-fastapi

from fastapi import FastAPI
from scalar_fastapi import get_scalar_api_reference

app = FastAPI()
app.get("/docs")(get_scalar_api_reference(openapi_url="/openapi.json"))

Verify before relying:

- Whether the package requires FastAPI to be installed separately or declares it as a dependency
- Minimum Python version or FastAPI version compatibility requirements
- Whether customization of the rendered documentation is supported

## Package facts

- License: MIT (permissive)
- Python support: unspecified
- Install friction: low
- Maintenance: active
- Downloads: 1.8M/month (top 5,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

fastapi api documentation, openapi swagger ui, interactive api reference, fastapi plugin documentation, beautiful api docs, api-documentation, fastapi-plugin

[View on SkillFed](https://skillfed.io/packages/scalar-fastapi) · [View on PyPI](https://pypi.org/project/scalar-fastapi/)