LV3 · Ecosystem
Rate Limit Playground
Design and compare a rate-limit policy under steady traffic, bursts, overload, and client retries.
Is this traffic within the allowed rate? Requests arrive → policy applies → allow or throttle.
Try a policy scenario
Token bucket: each request uses one credit from a reserve replenished at the allowed rate. A burst is a short spike in arriving traffic. Custom / starting example.
Throttled attempts are rejected here, not automatically queued. On narrow screens, scroll the chart sideways to read the timeline.
Advanced: limiter algorithm and client retries
Supporting metrics and model limits
Educational 24-second model, not production telemetry. The fixed rule resets each second. The sliding rule reduces the current allowance using half of the previous second’s allowed traffic; it is not an exact rolling-log implementation. Only the token bucket uses the burst reserve. Not every limiter queues traffic or sends a Retry-After response.
Rate means the sustained allowance per second. Tokens are request credits; a bucket is their reserve, and a window is a time interval used to count requests. Retry-After tells a client how long to wait after a rejection; it does not guarantee recovery.
What this tool does and why
Before you start
What
Design and compare a rate-limit policy under steady traffic, bursts, overload, and client retries.
Why
Fixed windows, sliding windows, and token buckets throttle the same traffic differently, which changes fairness and burst behavior.
Your Result and Action update in the tool as you change its inputs.
Model note
This browser-side model explains the inputs you choose. Check an important decision against the real system, brief, or production constraints.
Save this tool and explore next steps
Test the modeled traffic against a rate-limit policy.
Next: Circuit Breaker PlaygroundHow this tool stays honest
How it works
Compare fixed-window, sliding-window, and token-bucket models under steady traffic, short bursts, sustained overload, and retry-created traffic. See allowed flow, throttled 429 responses, burst capacity, and optional Retry-After behavior as an explicit educational model.
Assumptions
The tool runs in your browser and models the information you provide. It does not know facts outside that model.
Limitations
This is a simplified explanatory model, not a load test or production forecast. Real systems can include dependencies, distributions, failures, and feedback loops outside the selected inputs.
Understand Rate Limit Playground
What this tool helps you understand
Compare fixed-window, sliding-window, and token-bucket models under steady traffic, short bursts, sustained overload, and retry-created traffic. See allowed flow, throttled 429 responses, burst capacity, and optional Retry-After behavior as an explicit educational model.
When to use it
Before choosing how an API handles bursty traffic.
Try a scenario
Send the same burst through fixed-window, sliding-window and token-bucket policies. Compare accepted requests and waiting behavior.
How to read the result
Compare the shape and direction of different scenarios. The useful signal is how the result changes when an input changes, rather than one isolated number.
Assumptions and limits
This is a simplified explanatory model, not a load test or production forecast. Real systems can include dependencies, distributions, failures, and feedback loops outside the selected inputs.
Toolooo is part of Khizooology, created byKhizar Imtiaz (khizooo).