Category: APIs
Rate Limit
A rate limit restricts how many requests an API accepts in a time window to protect stability and fairness.
Also known as: quota, throttling
Expanded definition
Rate limits can be defined as requests per second, requests per minute, concurrent jobs, or daily quotas. They prevent accidental overload and make performance predictable.
When you hit a rate limit, the correct fix is usually batching, caching, backoff and retry, or requesting a higher limit. Blind retries without backoff often make the problem worse.
In data ordering or processing APIs, rate limits may apply to job submissions separately from data downloads. Read the documentation carefully and design clients to handle both cases.