ratelimit

What it is and what it does

ratelimit is a simple decorator-based rate limiter for Python functions that make API calls. It enforces a maximum number of function invocations within a specified time period (defaulting to 15 minutes), raising a RateLimitException when the quota is exceeded. This helps prevent applications from violating API provider rate limits and getting banned.

The package provides two strategies for handling rate-limit violations: raising an exception (which you can catch and retry), or using the sleep_and_retry decorator to automatically pause the current thread until the time window resets before retrying. It has no runtime dependencies and works by wrapping any function with a simple @limits(calls=N, period=seconds) decorator.

Use it for:

• Wrap API client functions to enforce a 15 minute rate limit or any custom quota without manual tracking
• Combine with retry logic to implement automatic retry when rate limits are hit
• Ensure background jobs or data-sync tasks respect API provider rate limits without explicit delay management
• Protect against accidental API abuse by adding a decorator to functions that call rate-limited endpoints

Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying

A function decorator that enforces rate limits on API calls, raising an exception or sleeping to prevent exceeding a specified call quota within a time window.

Yes, with caution. The package is simple, stable, and solves a real problem for API-heavy applications. However, the lack of updates since 2018-12-17 is a significant concern—verify compatibility with your Python version before relying on it in production. For straightforward rate-limiting needs, this remains functional.

Install

ratelimit on PyPI

pip install ratelimit

uv add ratelimit

poetry add ratelimit

Installing ratelimit

Before you install

High install friction; the package has not been updated since 2018-12-17, over 2797 days ago. While the repository remains active and marked stable, the age of the latest release may indicate limited responsiveness to compatibility issues.

License in practice

MIT license is permissive; you can use, modify, and distribute this package freely with minimal restrictions, though you must include the license notice.

Quickstart

pip install ratelimit

from ratelimit import limits

FIFTEEN_MINUTES = 900

@limits(calls=15, period=FIFTEEN_MINUTES)
def call_api(url):
    response = requests.get(url)
    return response

No runtime dependencies, but requires an external HTTP library (e.g. requests) for the decorated function to work.

Verify before relying

• Compatibility with current Python versions (requires_python is unspecified)
• Whether the package works correctly with modern async frameworks
• Active community support or response time for bug reports given the 2018 release date

Package facts

Evidence: ratelimit-2.2.1.tar.gz

Keywords: ratelimit, api, decorator

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