Urgent.News

What's breaking now, across thousands of outlets.

More in Tech

Rate Limiting Algorithms: Token Bucket vs Sliding Window Explained

Every public API eventually needs a way to say "not so fast." Without it, one misbehaving client, a retry loop gone wrong, or a scraper can consume enough capacity to slow the service down for…

  • Token bucket algorithm maintains fixed tokens replenished at steady rate
  • Consumes one token per request, rejects if empty, credits unused tokens
  • Sliding window uses rolling 60-second period to count recent requests

More from Wednesday 30 September →