Data and databases · Edition No. 11 · 5 Sep 2026

smithyhq/sqladmin

A SQLAlchemy admin panel mounted inside the FastAPI app he already runs — support without a psql prompt.

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11

smithyhq/sqladmin

💎 hidden gem

2.8k stars · BSD-3-Clause · 0.31.1 (2026-09-01)

A SQLAlchemy admin panel mounted inside the FastAPI app he already runs — support without a psql prompt.

Repo detailsthe review · specs · pros & cons · install

What it is

A SQLAlchemy admin interface for FastAPI and Starlette: you declare which models to expose and get a browsable, searchable, editable web UI over your tables. It mounts as a route inside the application you already run — no separate service, no second database connection.

Why it matters

You are one person supporting two products, and every support email — "my import failed", "did my payment go through?" — currently ends with you at a psql prompt reconstructing a query. This is an afternoon of work that turns those into a search box, and for someone who does not write SQL from memory that is the difference between answering in a minute and putting it off until Sunday. It also makes the rest of this ledger inspectable rather than theoretical: Procrastinate's job table (Ed. 5 #10), Lago's usage events (#1), Logto's users (#4) all become something you can look at without a terminal. Note the move: the project is now smithyhq/sqladmin, and it is releasing roughly monthly under its new home.

Stars2.8k
LicenceBSD-3-Clause
Latest0.31.1 (2026-09-01)checked 7 Sep 2026
Written inPython
RunsLocally, on your own machine
Setup effort
2 / 5
Payoff
4 / 5
Good
  • Exactly your stack — FastAPI, Starlette, SQLAlchemy — with nothing new to deploy or monitor.
  • BSD-3-Clause, the most permissive licence on this page.
  • Actively released under the new owner: 0.31.0 on 6 August, after 0.30, 0.29 and 0.28 in the three months before.
Watch for
  • An admin panel over live production data is a serious authentication problem. Put it behind Logto (#4) or a VPN — never a shared password.
  • Still 0.x, and the ownership change means older tutorials point at the previous repository.
  • It exposes your schema exactly as it is. A confusingly named column stays confusingly named in the UI.
How to get it

Mounted at /admin on the existing FastAPI app, reading the same SQLAlchemy models.

Screenshots
smithyhq/sqladmin: Screenshot 1smithyhq/sqladmin: Screenshot 2smithyhq/sqladmin: Screenshot 3

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