In today's digital age, serverless computing has become increasingly popular due to its scalability and cost-efficiency. One of the challenges of serverless computing is to manage resources efficiently, and one critical aspect of this is rate limiting. Rate limiting is a technique that limits the number of requests a client can make to a server over a given period. This technique can prevent abuse, improve performance, and reduce costs. One npm package that helps implement rate limiting for serverless applications is @upstash/ratelimit, built on top of Upstash Redis.

Upstash is a managed Redis-compatible database service designed for serverless applications.

@upstash/ratelimit is an npm package that provides serverless rate limiting using Upstash Redis. The package offers a simple API that can be used to limit the number of requests a client can make within a given time frame. The following algorithms are supported:

• Fixed window
• Sliding window
• Leaky bucket

Using @upstash/ratelimit is straightforward. First, you need to install the package using npm:

npm install @upstash/ratelimit @upstash/redis

Then, you can use it in your application:

import { Ratelimit } from "@upstash/ratelimit"
import { Redis } from "@upstash/redis"
 
const ratelimit = new Ratelimit({
    redis: new Redis({
        url: "",
        token: ""
    }),
    limiter: Ratelimit.slidingWindow(10, "10s"),
    analytics: true
})
 
 
// Check if the client has exceeded the rate limit
const { success } = await ratelimit.limit("identifier")

In the code above, we initialize Upstash with our Upstash Redis credentials and define our rate limiting rules. We then call the limit function, passing the identifier. The function returns a Promise that resolves with success and some other useful data.

@upstash/ratelimit is a useful npm package for serverless rate limiting that simplifies the process of implementing rate limiting for serverless applications. The package is built on top of Upstash Redis, which provides a complete solution for serverless applications. With @upstash/ratelimit, serverless developers can easily implement rate limiting, which can help prevent abuse, improve performance, and reduce costs.