System Design Intermediate Pro

Rate Limiting

Choose the right algorithm, enforce it across a fleet, and design a rate limiter that survives its own failures

25 min read 12 views

Compare token bucket, leaky bucket, fixed window, sliding log and sliding window counter with worked numbers, then design a distributed rate limiter on Redis, handle 429 responses correctly, and reason about fail-open versus fail-closed when the limiter itself is down.

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Practice questions (5)

Fixed Window Boundary Burst

Intermediate · Free

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Distributed Rate Limiting Race Condition

Advanced

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Configuring a Token Bucket for Burst and Sustained Rate

Intermediate

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Redis Outage: Fail-Open vs Fail-Closed

Advanced

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Rate Limiting vs Load Shedding vs Circuit Breaking

Intermediate

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Quizzes (1)

Rate Limiting Quiz

0 attempts · 10 min · Pass 70% · Intermediate

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