The indie dev problem

You've built an API. You want to protect it from abuse, but rate limiting tools are built for enterprise teams with enterprise budgets. You end up choosing: roll-your-own middleware (maintenance headache) or enterprise SaaS (overkill). Neither feels right.

💸

Expensive tooling

Per-request pricing that scales away your margin. You pay for the tool to exist, not for the traffic you actually get.

⚙️

Operational burden

Rolling your own rate limiter means debugging, monitoring, and on-call responsibilities. That's not a differentiator.

📊

Visibility gaps

You don't know who's hitting rate limits, why, or whether your thresholds are actually right for your API's behavior.

How it works

Deploy a lightweight proxy in front of your API. It sits between clients and your service, counting requests and deciding which ones make it through. Simple rules, instant feedback, full visibility.

curl https://your-api.com/v1/users \ -H "Authorization: Bearer sk_..." \ -H "X-Rate-Limit-ID: user-123" # Response headers tell you exactly where you stand X-Rate-Limit-Limit: 100 X-Rate-Limit-Remaining: 43 X-Rate-Limit-Reset: 1724052000

Per-user limits

Rate limit by API key, user ID, or IP. Mix and match limits for free tier, pro tier, and abusers.

Real-time dashboards

See who's throttled, what endpoints are hot, and when you need to scale. No guessing.

Flexible policies

Define limits per endpoint, per minute, per hour, or per day. Token bucket algorithm underneath.

Graceful degradation

Proxy fails open if it ever gets unhealthy. Your API never goes down because rate limiting broke.

Zero dependencies

Runs on any VPS. No vendor lock-in. Move or modify it whenever you want.

Webhook alerts

Get notified when unusual traffic patterns emerge. Act before your API melts.

Pricing that scales with you

Self-hosted, so you only pay for the infrastructure you already have. No per-request markup, no hidden tiers.

Plan

Self-hosted

Managed (optional)

Base license

Free

$99/mo

Requests/month

Unlimited

100M included

Dashboards

✓

Webhooks & alerts

✓

Support

Community

Email + Slack

Get started

Spin up a proxy in under 5 minutes. No credentials to manage, no signup delays.

docker run -d \n -e API_KEY=sk_dev_... \n -e RATE_LIMIT_PER_MINUTE=100 \n -p 8080:8080 \n ratelimit-proxy:latest

Then point your clients at the proxy URL instead of your API. That's it.

Want Rate Limit Proxy built out, or handed over?

This is not a purchase and there is no card field. It puts your address, this product, and whatever you write below in front of a person, and you get a written answer about what finishing it, or handing it over for you to run yourself, would actually take.

A person reads these. Expect a reply in days, not minutes.

Your address is used to answer you. No sequence, no list, no sharing.

Ask to be removed and you are removed.

Rate Limit Proxy