Definition

Throttling controls resource usage by limiting the rate of requests. Rate limiting enforces a maximum number of requests in a time window.

Core concept

Prevents overload by rejecting or slowing requests above threshold. Often implemented with token buckets or leaky buckets.

Use cases

APIs often limit clients (e.g., 100 requests/min). Internally, DB connections or job queues may throttle producers.

Trade-offs

Can degrade user experience if limits are hit, but protects system stability.

Example

A Redis token bucket algorithm grants a client at most 10 requests per second; extra requests get 429 HTTP responses.

References

Common API management practice.