API Rate Limiting: A Complete Guide for Developers

<h2> Problem Statement </h2> <p><strong>Rate limiting</strong> is a technique that controls how many requests a user or system can make to a server within a specific timeframe.

<p>Two months ago I shipped UNPWNED, a passive web security scanner aimed at indie hackers and developers shipping AI-generated code (Cursor, Lovable, Bolt, Replit, v0).</p> <p>I

<h2> TL:DR: </h2> <p>Testing rate-limited APIs without breaking your workflows comes down to one core principle: never test API rate limits against live systems when a mock will

<p>If your API has no rate limiting, any client can send as many requests as it wants. A broken retry loop, a scraper, or a user who refreshes too fast all of it hits your server