Advanced Rate Limiting

Defend your applications and APIs against abuse by throttling traffic that exceeds defined limits

Rate Limiting protects against denial-of-service attacks, brute force login attempts, traffic surges, and other types of abuse targeting APIs and applications.

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Benefits of Rate Limiting

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Mitigate DDoS attacks

Stop high-precision layer 7 attacks with granular configuration options.

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Ensure API availability

Identify abusive traffic with high accuracy by rate limiting traffic based on any parameter of a request.

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Protect customer data

Defend against brute force login attacks seeking to take over accounts and steal sensitive information.

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Rely on transparent pricing

Avoid unpredictable costs associated with traffic spikes and enumeration attacks. We will not charge you for usage when you are under volumetric attack.

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HOW IT WORKS

Pick the right option for you

Choose IP-based Rate Limiting to protect unauthenticated endpoints, limit the number of requests from specific IP addresses, and handle abuse from repeat offenders.

Upgrade to Advanced Rate Limiting if you want to protect your APIs from abuse, mitigate volumetric attacks from authenticated API sessions, and take full control of the parameters you rate limit on.

Learn more about rate limiting in our live application security demo series

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Analyst recognition

Gartner® named Cloudflare a Representative Vendor in Web Application and API Protection

Cloudflare has been recognized as a Representative Vendor in the Gartner Market Guide for WAAP report. We believe this recognition validates that we protect against emerging threats faster, offer tighter integration of security capabilities, and deliver powerful ease of use and deployment.

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What our customers are saying

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Conrad Electronic - logo light

“When other companies experienced a data leak, the attackers would often try the stolen email and password combinations on our sites. We always knew when there was another attack, but it was business as usual because Cloudflare detected and stopped it before it became a problem.”

Conrad Electronic

Top Rate Limiting use cases

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Configure thresholds

Protect your website URLs and API endpoints from suspicious requests that exceed defined thresholds. Granular configuration options include status codes, specific URLs, request limits, and request methods.

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Define responses

Visitors hitting defined request thresholds can trigger custom responses, including mitigating actions such as challenges or CAPTCHAS, response codes, timeouts, and blocking.

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Get insights into traffic patterns

Scale and protect your resources with analytics including the amount of malicious traffic blocked by rule and the number of requests that reach your origin.

Helping organizations bolster their application security strategies

Resources

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Ebook

Adopting everywhere security
Read ebook
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Whitepaper

3 challenges of securing and connecting application services
Read whitepaper
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Whitepaper

Say bye to the box
Read whitepaper
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Article

Website security guide: A 10-step checklist
Learn more
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Get Cloudflare Rate Limiting for your enterprise?

Talk to an expert

Select your job level... *
C-Level
VP
Director
Manager
Individual Contributor
Student
Other
Select your job function... *
IT
Security
Network
Infrastructure
Engineering
DevOps
Executive
Product
Finance/ Procurement
Sales / Marketing
Student
Press / Media
Other
Select your country...
Afghanistan
Aland Islands
Albania
Algeria
Andorra
Angola
Anguilla
Antarctica
Antigua and Barbuda
Argentina
Armenia
Aruba
Australia
Austria
Azerbaijan
Bahamas
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Barbados
Belarus
Belgium
Belize
Benin
Bermuda
Bhutan
Bolivia, Plurinational State of
Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Botswana
Bouvet Island
Brazil
British Indian Ocean Territory
Brunei Darussalam
Bulgaria
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Cambodia
Cameroon
Canada
Cape Verde
Cayman Islands
Central African Republic
Chad
Chile
China
Christmas Island
Cocos (Keeling) Islands
Colombia
Comoros
Congo, the Democratic Republic of the
Congo
Cook Islands
Costa Rica
Cote d'Ivoire
Croatia
Cuba
Curaçao
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Djibouti
Dominica
Dominican Republic
Ecuador
Egypt
El Salvador
Equatorial Guinea
Eritrea
Estonia
Ethiopia
Falkland Islands (Malvinas)
Faroe Islands
Fiji
Finland
France
French Guiana
French Polynesia
French Southern Territories
Gabon
Gambia
Georgia
Germany
Ghana
Gibraltar
Greece
Greenland
Grenada
Guadeloupe
Guatemala
Guernsey
Guinea-Bissau
Guinea
Guyana
Haiti
Heard Island and McDonald Islands
Holy See (Vatican City State)
Honduras
Hong Kong
Hungary
Iceland
India
Indonesia
Iran
Iraq
Ireland
Isle of Man
Israel
Italy
Jamaica
Japan
Jersey
Jordan
Kazakhstan
Kenya
Kiribati
Kuwait
Kyrgyzstan
Lao People's Democratic Republic
Latvia
Lebanon
Lesotho
Liberia
Libya
Liechtenstein
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Macao
Macedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic of
Madagascar
Malawi
Malaysia
Maldives
Mali
Malta
Martinique
Mauritania
Mauritius
Mayotte
Mexico
Moldova, Republic of
Monaco
Mongolia
Montenegro
Montserrat
Morocco
Mozambique
Myanmar
Namibia
Nauru
Nepal
Netherlands
New Caledonia
New Zealand
Nicaragua
Niger
Nigeria
Niue
Norfolk Island
North Korea
Norway
Oman
Pakistan
Palestine
Panama
Papua New Guinea
Paraguay
Peru
Philippines
Pitcairn
Poland
Portugal
Puerto Rico
Qatar
Reunion
Romania
Russian Federation
Rwanda
Saint Barthélemy
Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Lucia
Saint Martin (French part)
Saint Pierre and Miquelon
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Samoa
San Marino
Sao Tome and Principe
Saudi Arabia
Senegal
Serbia
Seychelles
Sierra Leone
Singapore
Sint Maarten (Dutch part)
Slovakia
Slovenia
Solomon Islands
Somalia
South Africa
South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
South Korea
South Sudan
Spain
Sri Lanka
Sudan
Suriname
Svalbard and Jan Mayen
Swaziland
Sweden
Switzerland
Syria
Taiwan
Tajikistan
Tanzania, United Republic of
Thailand
Timor-Leste
Togo
Tokelau
Tonga
Trinidad and Tobago
Tunisia
Turkey
Turkmenistan
Turks and Caicos Islands
Tuvalu
Uganda
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom
United States
Uruguay
Uzbekistan
Vanuatu
Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of
Viet Nam
Virgin Islands, British
Wallis and Futuna
Western Sahara
Yemen
Zambia
Zimbabwe