The easiest way to rate-limit a Python API

It is considered good practice to rate limit an API to allow for a better flow of data and to increase security by mitigating attacks such as DDoS. Rate limiting will restrict the number of requests that can be made from a unique IP address during a designated period of time.

Import the library

from ratelimit import limits

Apply the decorator

@app.route(‘/endpoint/’, methods=[‘GET’])
@limits(calls=1, period=1) #max 1 call per second
def respond():
    #API code

If the limit is exceeded, the following exception will be raised.

raise RateLimitException(‘too many calls’, period_remaining)

And that’s all. Just as developers are taught to code around SQL injections, rate limiting is another necessary measure that should be implemented with any API .

Comments

[Pacharapol Withayasakpunt]

pip install? It would be almost import antigravity.

For requests, or Flask?

[hextrace]

Hi, thx

I have some questions

What's a better flow of data? Requests are queued if limit is hit, can we configure a timeout? Is rate based on request emits or response receives?

[Paymon Wang Lotfi]

This is all configurable with the ratelimit API, this post is just showing how easy it is to get started. In this situation it is IP address

[Jón Ragnarsson]

What library is that?