Rate limit
A deliberate restriction put in place by an API provider to cap the number of requests a user or system can make within a specific timeframe.
What it is
Rate limiting protects servers from being overwhelmed by too much traffic, whether malicious (DDoS attacks) or accidental (a runaway script). If a client exceeds their allowed quota (e.g., 60 requests per minute), the server returns an HTTP 429 "Too Many Requests" error, forcing the client to wait and retry later.
When you would use it
You architect rate-limiting logic to protect your backend services, and you write error-handling logic in your frontend apps to gracefully handle rate limit rejections from third-party APIs.
Common operations
- Enforcing API quotas to prevent users on a free tier from abusing server resources.
- Implementing exponential backoff in application code when hitting OpenAI rate limits.
Related terms
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