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Last updated: April 29, 2026
Algorithms (token bucket, sliding window), enforcement layers, Redis Lua patterns, abuse patterns and defenses.
Rate limiting is the operational defense that prevents APIs from being abused at scale. Without it, every authenticated endpoint is a potential cost-amplifier (cloud bills), brute-force vector (auth endpoints), or DoS surface. With well-designed rate limits, abusive patterns hit walls quickly while legitimate traffic flows. This module covers rate-limit design, abuse patterns, and the architectures that scale.
Why “set a rate limit” isn’t enough
The naive answer — “100 requests per second per IP” — fails in three common cases:
- NAT-shared IPs — entire offices and ISPs come from one IP. Rate-limiting per IP punishes legitimate clusters
- Distributed abuse — attacker uses 10,000 IPs at 1 request each. Per-IP limit useless
- Asymmetric expense — 100 cheap requests per second is fine; 100 expensive aggregations per second melts the database
Rate limiting needs to be multi-dimensional and aware of cost.
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