Throttling
ELI5 — The Vibe Check
Throttling is like rate limiting's cousin — instead of blocking requests outright, it slows them down. Think of it like a highway during rush hour — the cars don't stop, they just queue up and get through at a controlled pace.
Real Talk
Throttling controls the rate of requests processed by a system, typically by introducing delays or queuing excess requests rather than rejecting them outright. It's often used alongside rate limiting to degrade gracefully under high load.
When You'll Hear This
"The payment processor throttles bulk requests to 100 per second." / "Add throttling to prevent the background job from overwhelming the DB."
Related Terms
Caching
Caching is saving the result of a slow operation so you can reuse it quickly next time.
Middleware
Middleware is like a security checkpoint at an airport.
Queue
A queue is like a line at a coffee shop — first come, first served. The first person to get in line is the first to get their coffee.
Rate Limiting
Rate limiting is like a bouncer who says 'you can come in 100 times per hour, then you wait.