Panel is an open-source Python library that enables developers to build powerful tools, dashboards, and complex applications entirely in Python without requiring web development expertise. The framework emphasizes a batteries-included philosophy, providing direct access to the PyData ecosystem, advanced data tables, and extensive visualization capabilities. Panel operates as a member of the HoloViz ecosystem, positioning itself as a gateway to a connected set of data exploration tools built around Python.
The framework supports integration with numerous visualization libraries including Bokeh, Plotly, Matplotlib, HoloViews, hvPlot, Altair, Datashader, Folium, PyVista, and others. Panel provides bi-directional communication capabilities that enable developers to react to user interactions such as clicks, selections, and hover events. The library offers both high-level reactive APIs and lower-level callback-based APIs, allowing developers to quickly prototype exploratory applications while maintaining the flexibility to build complex, multi-page applications with rich interactivity.
Panel supports multiple development environments including Jupyter Notebooks, VS Code, PyCharm, and Spyder, giving developers flexibility in their workflow. The framework provides diverse deployment options, allowing applications to run as web applications on Tornado, Flask, Django, or FastAPI servers, as standalone client-side applications powered by Pyodide or PyScript, as interactive Jupyter notebook components, or as static HTML pages, GIF videos, or PNG images.
Panel is built on top of Param, which enables developers to annotate code with parameter ranges, documentation, and parameter dependencies. This architecture allows the same codebase to function across notebooks, data applications, batch processing, and reports without modification. The framework is licensed under the BSD 3-Clause License and maintains comprehensive documentation at panel.holoviz.org, with community support available through HoloViz Discourse and Discord channels.
