diff --git a/server/requirements.txt b/server/requirements.txt
index cce14749..3c058312 100644
--- a/server/requirements.txt
+++ b/server/requirements.txt
@@ -6,10 +6,11 @@ Flask-Compress>=1.4.0
 Flask-Cors>=3.0.6
 Flask-RESTful>=0.3.6
 flatbuffers>=1.10.0
-scanpy>=1.3.7
-matplotlib>=2.2
+# TODO revert after scanpy updates their dependency on this
+matplotlib<3.1
 numpy>=1.15.2
 pandas>=0.23.1
+scanpy>=1.3.7
 scipy>=1.1.0
 scikit-learn>=0.19.1,!=0.20.0
 tables==3.5.1