Phase 9 · API Design
TopicsRate Limiting Strategies
Part of the Backend Developer Roadmap.
Summary
Different algorithms (fixed window, sliding window, token bucket) for capping request rates — each with different trade-offs between burstiness, fairness and implementation complexity.
How to Learn This
- 1Implement a simple fixed-window rate limiter using Redis.
- 2Compare fixed window vs token bucket behavior around burst traffic.
- 3Learn why rate limiting needs shared storage (Redis) once you run multiple server instances.
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