diff --git a/server/requirements.txt b/server/requirements.txt
index 18ff0f31..3c058312 100644
--- a/server/requirements.txt
+++ b/server/requirements.txt
@@ -6,7 +6,8 @@ Flask-Compress>=1.4.0
 Flask-Cors>=3.0.6
 Flask-RESTful>=0.3.6
 flatbuffers>=1.10.0
-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