The built-in stuff was either way too rigid (limit everything the same), too hacky, or it fell over under load. What I actually needed was something like:
“Limit requests per user ID”
“Limit per API key”
Or even “limit based on custom fields like subscription plan”
I ended up writing my own spaghetti code more than once… and hated it
So I built Rately. It’s a service (runs on top of Cloudflare) that lets you set custom limits however you want, with ~25ms latency. The idea is: drop it in, configure your rules, and forget about it.
If you’re running a SaaS or an API, I’d love to hear — how are you handling rate limiting today? Did you build your own or use something off the shelf?
(If you’re curious, it’s here: rately.dev)