Basic IP rate-limiting middleware for Express. Use to limit repeated requests to public APIs and/or endpoints such as password reset.
npm install express5-test-express-rate-limit---
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---
Basic rate-limiting middleware for Express. Use to limit repeated requests to
public APIs and/or endpoints such as password reset. Plays nice with
express-slow-down.
> This module does not share state with other processes/servers by default. If
> you need a more robust solution, I recommend using an external store. See the
> stores section below for a list of external stores.
This module was designed to only handle the basics and didn't even support
external stores initially. These other options all are excellent pieces of
software and may be more appropriate for some situations:
- rate-limiter-flexible
- express-brute
- rate-limiter
From the npm registry:
``sh`Using npm
> npm install express-rate-limitUsing yarn or pnpm
> yarn/pnpm add express-rate-limit
From Github Releases:
`sh`Using npm
> npm install https://github.com/express-rate-limit/express-rate-limit/releases/download/v{version}/express-rate-limit.tgzUsing yarn or pnpm
> yarn/pnpm add https://github.com/express-rate-limit/express-rate-limit/releases/download/v{version}/express-rate-limit.tgz
Replace {version} with the version of the package that you want to your, e.g.:6.0.0.
This library is provided in ESM as well as CJS forms, and works with both
Javascript and Typescript projects.
This package requires you to use Node 14 or above.
Import it in a CommonJS project (type: commonjs or no type field inpackage.json) as follows:
`ts`
const rateLimit = require('express-rate-limit')
Import it in a ESM project (type: module in package.json) as follows:
`ts`
import rateLimit from 'express-rate-limit'
To use it in an API-only server where the rate-limiter should be applied to all
requests:
`ts
import rateLimit from 'express-rate-limit'
const limiter = rateLimit({
windowMs: 15 60 1000, // 15 minutes
max: 100, // Limit each IP to 100 requests per window (here, per 15 minutes)RateLimit-*
standardHeaders: true, // Return rate limit info in the headersX-RateLimit-*
legacyHeaders: false, // Disable the headers
})
// Apply the rate limiting middleware to all requests
app.use(limiter)
`
To use it in a 'regular' web server (e.g. anything that uses
express.static()), where the rate-limiter should only apply to certain
requests:
`ts
import rateLimit from 'express-rate-limit'
const apiLimiter = rateLimit({
windowMs: 15 60 1000, // 15 minutes
max: 100, // Limit each IP to 100 requests per window (here, per 15 minutes)RateLimit-*
standardHeaders: true, // Return rate limit info in the headersX-RateLimit-*
legacyHeaders: false, // Disable the headers
})
// Apply the rate limiting middleware to API calls only
app.use('/api', apiLimiter)
`
To create multiple instances to apply different rules to different endpoints:
`ts
import rateLimit from 'express-rate-limit'
const apiLimiter = rateLimit({
windowMs: 15 60 1000, // 15 minutes
max: 100, // Limit each IP to 100 requests per window (here, per 15 minutes)RateLimit-*
standardHeaders: true, // Return rate limit info in the headersX-RateLimit-*
legacyHeaders: false, // Disable the headers
})
app.use('/api/', apiLimiter)
const createAccountLimiter = rateLimit({
windowMs: 60 60 1000, // 1 hour
max: 5, // Limit each IP to 5 create account requests per window (here, per hour)RateLimit-*
message:
'Too many accounts created from this IP, please try again after an hour',
standardHeaders: true, // Return rate limit info in the headersX-RateLimit-*
legacyHeaders: false, // Disable the headers
})
app.post('/create-account', createAccountLimiter, (request, response) => {
//...
})
`
To use a custom store:
`ts
import rateLimit, { MemoryStore } from 'express-rate-limit'
const apiLimiter = rateLimit({
windowMs: 15 60 1000, // 15 minutes
max: 100, // Limit each IP to 100 requests per window (here, per 15 minutes)RateLimit-*
standardHeaders: true, // Return rate limit info in the headers
store: new MemoryStore(),
})
// Apply the rate limiting middleware to API calls only
app.use('/api', apiLimiter)
`
> Note: most stores will require additional configuration, such as custom
> prefixes, when using multiple instances. The default built-in memory store is
> an exception to this rule.
If you are behind a proxy/load balancer (usually the case with most hosting
services, e.g. Heroku, Bluemix, AWS ELB, Nginx, Cloudflare, Akamai, Fastly,
Firebase Hosting, Rackspace LB, Riverbed Stingray, etc.), the IP address of the
request might be the IP of the load balancer/reverse proxy (making the rate
limiter effectively a global one and blocking all requests once the limit is
reached) or undefined. To solve this issue, add the following line to your
code (right after you create the express application):
`ts`
app.set('trust proxy', numberOfProxies)
Where numberOfProxies is the number of proxies between the user and the
server. To find the correct number, create a test endpoint that returns the
client IP:
`ts`
app.set('trust proxy', 1)
app.get('/ip', (request, response) => response.send(request.ip))
Go to /ip and see the IP address returned in the response. If it matches your
public IP address, then the number of proxies is correct and the rate limiter
should now work correctly. If not, then keep increasing the number until it
does.
For more information about the trust proxy setting, take a look at the
official Express documentation.
> number
Time frame for which requests are checked/remembered. Also used in the
Retry-After header when the limit is reached.
Note: with stores that do not implement the init function (see the table instores
the section below), you may need to configure this value
twice, once here and once on the store. In some cases the units also differ
(e.g. seconds vs miliseconds).
Defaults to 60000 ms (= 1 minute).
> number | function
The maximum number of connections to allow during the window before rate
limiting the client.
Can be the limit itself as a number or a (sync/async) function that accepts the
Express request and response objects and then returns a number.
Defaults to 5. Set it to 0 to disable the rate limiter.
An example of using a function:
`ts
const isPremium = async (user) => {
// ...
}
const limiter = rateLimit({
// ...
max: async (request, response) => {
if (await isPremium(request.user)) return 10
else return 5
},
})
`
> any
The response body to send back when a client is rate limited.
May be a string, JSON object, or any other value that Express'sresponse.send methodstring
supports. It can also be a (sync/async) function that accepts the Express
request and response objects and then returns a , JSON object or anyresponse.send
other value the Express function accepts.
Defaults to 'Too many requests, please try again later.'
An example of using a function:
`ts
const isPremium = async (user) => {
// ...
}
const limiter = rateLimit({
// ...
message: async (request, response) => {
if (await isPremium(request.user))
return 'You can only make 10 requests every hour.'
else return 'You can only make 5 requests every hour.'
},
})
`
> number
The HTTP status code to send back when a client is rate limited.
Defaults to 429 (HTTP 429 Too Many Requests - RFC 6585).
> boolean
Whether to send the legacy rate limit headers for the limit
(X-RateLimit-Limit), current usage (X-RateLimit-Remaining) and reset timeX-RateLimit-Reset
(if the store provides it) () on all responses. If set totrue, the middleware also sends the Retry-After header on all blocked
requests.
Defaults to true (for backward compatibility).
> Renamed in 6.x from headers to legacyHeaders.
> boolean
Whether to enable support for headers conforming to the
ratelimit standardization draft
adopted by the IETF (RateLimit-Limit, RateLimit-Remaining, and, if the storeRateLimit-Reset
supports it, ). If set to true, the middleware also sends theRetry-After header on all blocked requests. May be used in conjunction with,legacyHeaders
or instead of the option.
Defaults to false (for backward compatibility, but its use is recommended).
> Renamed in 6.x from draft_polli_ratelimit_headers to standardHeaders.
> string
The name of the property on the Express request object to store the rate limit
info.
Defaults to 'rateLimit'.
> boolean
When set to true, failed requests won't be counted. Request considered failedrequestWasSuccessful
when the option returns false. By default, this means
requests fail when:
- the response status >= 400
- the request was cancelled before last chunk of data was sent (response close
event triggered)
- the response event was triggered by response
(Technically they are counted and then un-counted, so a large number of slow
requests all at once could still trigger a rate-limit. This may be fixed in a
future release. PRs welcome!)
Defaults to false.
> boolean
If true, the library will (by default) skip all requests that are consideredrequestWasSuccessful
'failed' by the function. By default, this means requests
succeed when the response status code < 400.
(Technically they are counted and then un-counted, so a large number of slow
requests all at once could still trigger a rate-limit. This may be fixed in a
future release. PRs welcome!)
Defaults to false.
> function
Method to generate custom identifiers for clients.
Should be a (sync/async) function that accepts the Express request andresponse objects and then returns a string.
By default, the client's IP address is used:
`ts`
const limiter = rateLimit({
// ...
keyGenerator: (request, response) => request.ip,
})
> function
Express request handler that sends back a response when a client is
rate-limited.
By default, sends back the statusCode and message set via the options,
similar to this:
`ts`
const limiter = rateLimit({
// ...
handler: (request, response, next, options) =>
response.status(options.statusCode).send(options.message),
})
> function
A (sync/async) function that accepts the Express request and response
objects that is called when a client has reached their rate limit, and will be
rate limited on their next request.
This method was
deprecated in v6 -
Please use a custom handler that checks the number of hits instead.
> function
Function to determine whether or not this request counts towards a client's
quota. Should be a (sync/async) function that accepts the Express request andresponse objects and then returns true or false.
Could also act as an allowlist for certain keys:
`ts
const allowlist = ['192.168.0.56', '192.168.0.21']
const limiter = rateLimit({
// ...
skip: (request, response) => allowlist.includes(request.ip),
})
`
By default, it skips no requests:
`ts`
const limiter = rateLimit({
// ...
skip: (request, response) => false,
})
> function
Method to determine whether or not the request counts as 'succesful'. Used when
either skipSuccessfulRequests or skipFailedRequests is set to true. Shouldrequest
be a (sync/async) function that accepts the Express and response
objects and then returns or false.
By default, requests with a response status code less than 400 are considered
successful:
`ts`
const limiter = rateLimit({
// ...
requestWasSuccessful: (request, response) => response.statusCode < 400,
})
> Store
The Store to use to store the hit count for each client.
By default, the memory-store is used.
Here is a list of external stores:
| Name | Description | Legacy/Modern |
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------- |
| memory-store | _(default)_ Simple in-memory option. Does not share state when app has multiple processes or servers. | Modern as of v6.0.0 |
| rate-limit-redis | A Redis-backed store, more suitable for large or demanding deployments. | Modern as of v3.0.0 |
| rate-limit-memcached | A Memcached-backed store. | Legacy |
| rate-limit-mongo | A MongoDB-backed store. | Legacy |
| precise-memory-rate-limit | A memory store similar to the built-in one, except that it stores a distinct timestamp for each key. | Legacy |
Take a look at
this guide
if you wish to create your own store.
A request.rateLimit property is added to all requests with the limit,current, and remaining number of requests and, if the store provides it, aresetTime Date object. These may be used in your application code to take
additional actions or inform the user of their status.
The property name can be configured with the configuration option
requestPropertyName`.
Resets the rate limiting for a given key. An example use case is to allow users
to complete a captcha or whatever to reset their rate limit, then call this
method.
If you encounter a bug or want to see something added/changed, please go ahead
and
open an issue!
If you need help with something, feel free to
start a discussion!
If you wish to contribute to the library, thanks! First, please read
the contributing guide. Then you can pick up any issue and
fix/implement it!
MIT © Nathan Friedly