Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between token bucket and leaky bucket?
Token bucket allows bursts up to the bucket capacity, then enforces a sustained rate equal to the refill rate. Leaky bucket drains at a fixed rate regardless of arrival pattern, smoothing output to a steady pace and giving no burst headroom.
How big should the bucket capacity be?
Large enough to absorb normal burst patterns like page-load fan-out, mobile app startup, or retry storms, and small enough that a bad actor cannot cause harm with a single burst. A common starting point is 5-10 times the per-second refill rate.
Should limits be per user or per IP?
Per authenticated key or user is fairest and most accurate. Per IP is a useful fallback for unauthenticated traffic but fails when many users share one IP (corporate NAT, university network).
What response headers should accompany a 429?
Return X-RateLimit-Limit (the bucket capacity), X-RateLimit-Remaining (tokens left), X-RateLimit-Reset (when the bucket refills), and Retry-After (seconds until the client should retry).
How do I handle distributed rate limiting across multiple servers?
In-process token buckets don't coordinate across instances. Use a shared store like Redis with atomic increment operations, or a dedicated rate-limit service, to enforce a global limit consistently.
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