Designing Rate Limiting for APIs
Token bucket, leaky bucket, fixed and sliding window algorithms, plus the patterns for building rate limiters that work in distributed systems without falling over.
Designing Rate Limiting for APIs
Token bucket, leaky bucket, fixed and sliding window algorithms, plus the patterns for building rate limiters that work in distributed systems without falling over.
Why do you need rate limiting on an API even if your servers can handle the traffic?
Capacity is only one reason. The others bite harder in production: - A single buggy client in a retry loop can saturate a downstream database or a paid third-party API - Abusive scrapers and credential-stuffing bots cost real money on egress, CPU, and tokens - Without limits, one customer can degrade service for everyone (noisy neighbor) - Auth endpoints without limits turn into brute-force playgrounds Rate limiting is a fairness and safety control. You add it before you need it, not after the incident.
More flashcard decks
GitOps
ArgoCD Fundamentals
Master GitOps principles and ArgoCD essentials including app deployment, sync policies, multi-cluster management, and security best practices.
20 minutes
FinOps
Cloud Cost Allocation Tags Across AWS, GCP, and Azure
Learn how to set up consistent cost allocation tagging strategies across multi-cloud environments for accurate chargeback and showback reporting.
20 minutes
GitOps
GitOps with Argo CD: Structuring Your Repository for Multi-Environment Deployments
Best practices for organizing Git repositories when using Argo CD to manage deployments across development, staging, and production environments.
20 minutes
Also worth your time on this topic
Complete Web Server Automation with Ansible
Build a comprehensive Ansible playbook to automate web server deployment, configuration, and security hardening across multiple environments.
75 minutes
Argo CD Multi-Environment Repository Structure Checklist
How to organize your Git repositories when running Argo CD across dev, staging, and production. Covers folder layout, app-of-apps, ApplicationSets, secrets, RBAC, and promotion flow.
60-90 minutes
ArgoCD Fundamentals
Master GitOps principles and ArgoCD essentials including app deployment, sync policies, multi-cluster management, and security best practices.
20 minutes