#1616th of 102 in Backends, databases and hosting
scalar
OpenAPI API reference renderer and offline-first API client
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- Stars
- 16.4k
- License
- MIT
- Last commit
- Nov 2026
- Last release
- Nov 2026
- Language
- TypeScript
14,648 on 21 Apr 202616,395 on 10 Nov 2026
From GitHub's daily star counts.
Checked on GitHub.
Overview
Scalar renders OpenAPI/Swagger documents as an interactive API reference with a built-in request tester and generated code examples. It also ships a desktop and browser API client for Windows, macOS and Linux, plus OpenAPI tooling such as a parser, upgrader, mock server and CLI. Integrations cover about 30 frameworks including FastAPI, Hono, Express, NestJS, Next.js, Laravel and ASP.NET Core.
Who it is for: Developers who need to publish or test docs for OpenAPI/Swagger APIs
Strengths
- Drop-in HTML/ESM setup from a CDN, no build step required
- Dedicated integrations for about 30 frameworks across JS, Python, Java, Go, Rust, PHP and .NET
- Default OpenAPI docs UI in Elysia, Nitro, Litestar, oRPC and others
- Same repo includes API client, parser, mock server and OpenAPI upgrader
Weaknesses
- Not an AI project; fits the list's categories only loosely
- Managed hosting, GitHub Sync and custom domains are in the hosted product, not this repo
- Needs an existing OpenAPI document or a generator for your framework
- Browser use may need a CORS proxy such as proxy.scalar.com
What it needs
- no GPU
Quick answers
Is scalar open source?
Yes. Its code is on GitHub under the MIT license.
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